Northern Star Resources has announced more than 130,000m of drilling in the 2023–24 financial year (FY24) to date.
The company also said it has uncovered strong potential for growth at all three of its production centres following promising results from its drilling program.
“Our team has made excellent exploration progress this financial year to advance operational, growth and discovery projects that aim to support long-term, value-creating strategies across our global portfolio,” Northern Star managing director Stuart Tonkin said.
“With more than 10 years of a reserve-backed production profile, Northern Star continues to seek opportunities to further improve margins and extend mine lives.”
Drilling from underground drives at Northern Star’s Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines (KCGM) in Western Australia generated strong results that may provide future mill feed sources outside of the current mineral resource.
Elsewhere at Kalgoorlie, the company’s Red Hill, Mount Percy, and Hercules prospects highlighted the potential for progress across the region.
Less than 30km from KCGM’s Fimiston plant, the Hercules prospect progressed over the past six months, with the strike length extended to 500m, and depth to 350m.
“Exploration and capital investment in our largest asset, KCGM, is generating and enhancing returns for our shareholders,” Tonkin said.
“We are rapidly growing near-mine opportunities close to underground infrastructure, which has the potential to add higher-margin ounces to the existing reserve profile that underpins strong economic returns for our mill expansion.”
At the company’s Yandal operations in WA, drilling has continued across operational, growth and discovery projects with high-grade intercepts highlighting future potential growth opportunities.
Extensions within the site’s Jundee underground mine show promising results with exceptionally high grades including 1.5m at 69 grams per tonne (g/t) of gold and 0.3m at 660.4g/t of gold.
Across the sea, Northern Star’s exploration at its Pogo operation in Alaska has extended the mineralised footprint with the discovery of the Star deposit just 1.3km south of the mine.
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