Cardinal Resources (ASX:CDV, CDV.TO) has now completed a close spaced drill program at the Namdini zone where the company plans to start its mining operations in a higher grade starter pit. This grade control drilling program has confirmed the expected grades (and the size) of the starter pit, which increases our confidence in the positive outcome of the Preliminary Economic Assessment.
The drill program consisted of in excess of 300 reverse circulation holes for a total of 13,300 meters of drilling (the average depth of the holes was just over 40 meters as the drill program was just aiming to confirm the near surface part of this zone). In fact, the new model almost completely confirms the estimate which was a part of the September 2017 resource update. The zone contains approximately 4 million tonnes at an average grade of 1.4 g/t gold for a total of 183,000 ounces of gold using a cutoff grade of 0.3 g/t. And even if you’d increase the cut-off grade to 0.7 g/t, you’d lose approximately 30% of the tonnage but as the average grade also increases by the same percentage, you’d lose very few ounces.
Not only is it great to see the potential of the starter pit has now been confirmed, as the discrepancy between both resource estimates is very minimal (2%), we think this also bodes well for the credibility of the remainder of the 7.4 million ounce resource.
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The author has a long position in Cardinal Resources. Please read the disclaimer
