Brightstar Resources Limited doubles Two Mile Hill gold resource to 1.45Moz
The Western Australian deposit now contains 526,000 indicated ounces, with the larger estimate set for a Sandstone study due in the December quarter.
Mara Quinlan
Brightstar Resources Limited ASXBTR said on Monday that its Sept. 28 estimate put Two Mile Hill-Shillington at 1.45 million ounces of gold grading 1.8 grams per tonne, nearly double the previous 731,000 ounces. The increase lifts the indicated portion to 526,000 ounces from 190,000 ounces, giving its Sandstone prefeasibility study more classified material to assess.
Brightstar shares traded at A$0.59, up 1.2 per cent, at 1:04 p.m. AEST on Monday on the ASX, according to ASXBTR. The Sept. 28 resource announcement followed a drilling campaign intended to add ounces and improve the classification of material already identified at the Western Australian deposit.
The new estimate covers 24.6 million tonnes, up from 14.6 million tonnes in the previous resource table, while the average grade rose from 1.6 grams per tonne. Its underground component holds 1.264 million ounces at 2.0 grams per tonne, accounting for most of the updated deposit.
Brightstar said the update takes Sandstone's resource to 3.6 million ounces from 2.4 million ounces and its companywide resource to 5.2 million ounces. The estimate excludes deeper drilling at the Shirvington zone, where the company has logged visible gold but has no assay results yet.
The indicated estimate is 10.4 million tonnes at 1.6 grams per tonne; another 14.2 million tonnes at 2.0 grams per tonne is inferred. Inferred mineralisation carries greater geological uncertainty, and Brightstar's release says there is no certainty it will be converted to indicated material or an ore reserve.
The company applied a 0.4 gram-per-tonne cutoff to open pit material above roughly 150 metres depth and a 0.73 gram-per-tonne cutoff to the underground deposit. The estimate assigns 96,000 ounces to the Two Mile Hill open pit and 86,000 ounces to Shillington.
“The new update will now be incorporated into Brightstar’s ongoing underground mining studies at Two Mile Hill, and subsequently the Sandstone PFS due for delivery later this year,” managing director Alex Rovira said in the release.
The resource includes infill holes and drilling that extended the known deposit at depth. Brightstar said the roughly 3,800-metre Shirvington program remains outside the estimate, although geological information from it helped define the extent of the host rock.
The first two Shirvington holes logged 53 occurrences of visible gold, with assays pending at the time of the Sept. 28 announcement. Two more deep holes were nearing completion, and the program had drilled about 250 metres below the new resource boundary, the company said.
Brightstar is also developing its Goldfields hub, where it targets first gold from a Laverton processing plant in the June quarter of 2027, according to its company plan. The Sandstone estimate feeds a separate development study and does not itself establish how much of the resource can be mined profitably.
Brightstar expects to publish the Sandstone prefeasibility study and maiden ore reserve in the December quarter of 2026, according to its project timetable.
