Augusta Gold (G.TO) has released an updated resource estimate for its flagship Bullfrog gold project in Nevada. The updated estimate is based on in excess of 250,000 meters of drilling in over 1,300 holes and now contains 1.2 million ounces of gold in the measured and indicated resource category as well as an additional 258,000 ounces of gold in the inferred category. With an average grade of 0.53 g/t and 0.48 g/t, the resource grade exceeds the ‘traditional’ cutoff grades for heap leachable oxide resources in Nevada. The strip ratio wasn’t disclosed but perhaps the technical report will contain more details.
Looking at the breakdown of the resource, the vast majority of the resource is indeed classified as an oxide-based resource: just over 1 million ounces in the measured and indicated resource categories are in the M&I resource and that’s a good start considering the average recovery rates are estimated at 82% for the gold and 20% for the silver (so of the 2.3 million ounces of silver in the measured and indicated resource category, less than half a million ounces are expected to be recovered).
The sulphide resource contains about 70,000 ounces of gold in the M&I and 22,000 ounces of gold in the inferred resource category but with an expected recovery rate of just 50% for the gold and 12% for the silver it’s perhaps better to ignore the sulphides for now.
And perhaps Augusta should spend some more time on getting the message out as the most recent corporate presentation available on the website is from July 2021, eight months ago.
Disclosure: The author has no position in Augusta Gold. Please read our disclaimer.
