Horizon Minerals kicks-off largest ever drilling program of at least 70,000 metres at Goldfields tenements

Horizon Minerals Ltd (ASX:HRZ) has begun its largest-ever drilling program of at least 70,000 metres across its entire 850 square kilometre gold prospective tenement package in WA’s Goldfields. The primary objectives of the fully funded $7 million aircore, reverse circulation (RC) and diamond drilling program include: Converting existing measured and indicated resources to a maiden ore reserve and upgrade existing inferred resources to a higher confidence JORC category for inclusion in the consolidated feasibility study; Testing lateral and depth extensions to known mineralisation at the core Boorara, Rose Hill, Binduli and Teal gold project areas for the longer-term production profile; and Testing high priority new discovery targets defined at Lakewood, Kanowna South, Yarmany, Windanya/Baden Powell, Gunga and Balagundi. Shares have been as much as 11% higher this morning to 16 cents. “Reserve and resource growth plans” Horizon managing director Jon Price said: “We are pleased to be commencing the company’s largest-ever drilling program which will feed into our reserve and resource growth plans as part of the feasibility study for the larger-scale development supporting a proposed standalone processing plant at Boorara. “In addition, the company has refined a suite of walk-up new discovery targets that will be tested as we continue the search for new large-scale deposits in this prolific gold producing region. “Horizon is now well funded, producing gold and generating cash, assessing a larger scale production profile and exploring for growth and new discoveries.” Horizon’s project area location, resources and surrounding infrastructure Reserve conversion drilling The current 1.1 million ounces mineral resource estimate comprises the 507,000 ounces baseload Boorara project and 548,000 ounces in satellite deposits - with more than 74% in the measured and indicated resource categories. The Boorara Gold Project is in production and several satellite deposits close to a proposed standalone processing plant at Boorara are being assessed as part of the consolidated feasibility study. Around 18,000 metres of drilling will be completed at the core Boorara, Rose Hill, Brilliant North, Teal and Binduli gold projects to enable assessment of a minimum 4-5 year initial production profile with Boorara providing 70% of the mill feed supported by satellite open cut and underground projects. An updated mineral resource estimate is scheduled for released in the December quarter 2020. Resource growth drilling To ensure a strong pipeline of projects to replace reserves over time, a 15,000-metre drilling program is planned to grow resources at key advanced exploration projects. The drilling will target strike and depth extensions beyond the current mineralised envelopes, test for repeat structures and new targets for near-mine resource growth. At Boorara, resource drilling will focus on areas outside of the current block model and will target nearby strike or depth extensions to the Regal, Crown Jewel and Royal deposits. At the Teal area, Horizon plans to follow up new mineralisation discovered in 2018 at the adjacent Teal East and Teal West-Yolande areas with a view to building a significant complimentary resource for possible reserve inclusion in the feasibility study’s longer-term production profile. In addition, a first pass optimisation is planned to assess its current economics and potential for a cutback operation at the newly acquired Gunga West mine, 5 kilometres east of Coolgardie, which contains 60,000 ounces gold. Target generation and production pipeline New resource drilling During 2019, Horizon tested three historical prospects with encouraging results at Coote, Baden Powell and Capricorn. Around 15,000 metres of resource style drilling is planned over the prospects. New discovery drilling   Since 2017, Horizon has consolidated several large, strategic landholdings in the Kalgoorlie-Coolgardie district within major geological structures and prospective greenstone belt. Driving these acquisitions was the potential to find new and undiscovered gold deposits in areas where it is believed insufficient, or largely ineffective, exploration has been conducted. The priority project areas include Yarmany, Black Flag, Lakewood and the Kanowna South-Balagundi area north of Boorara. Additional project areas targeted for new discovery drilling include the greater Binduli-Teal area, Gunga Regional and Golden Ridge. Around 22,000 metres of drilling is planned across these targets. Looking forwards The drilling will be completed systematically with up to three rigs cycling through the program with the results from each round collated, reviewed and informing the next round of drilling. First results are expected in the December quarter 2020 with resource and reserve updates targeted for the March and June quarters 2021 respectively.