The upgrade to 3.65Mt at 1.08g/t gold was calculated using historical drill data and is based on current Australian gold prices.
Coogee, which is adjacent to the rich St Ives goldfield and sits about 55km south of Kalgoorlie, also has a copper resource of 1.01Mt at 0.41% copper – or 4133t of contained metal – providing the company with a solid foundation for growth within the Kalgoorlie region.
The gold mineralisation extends along strike for about 1.2km at an average width of 350m and extends to more than 225m vertically, with Javelin Minerals (ASX:JAV) noting the resource remains open to the north and downdip with strong potential to extend known mineralisation along strike towards the north-west.
In line with this, the company has already identified numerous untested magnetic anomalies as having the potential to host further gold-copper mineralisation.
“This is a strong result which provides a solid platform on which to build a very substantial gold inventory on the doorstep of the world-class St Ives gold field,” executive chairman Brett Mitchell said.
“The scope for growth at Coogee is clearly immense. The mineralisation is open and we have numerous compelling targets. Despite a well-established mineralised system and its highly desirable address, Coogee has been exposed to virtually no modern exploration techniques.
“We have already identified numerous areas of significant known mineralisation with the potential to be quickly brought into the resource inventory.”
Coogee was discovered in the mid-1990s by Sovereign Resources and was subsequently mined by Ramelius Resources (ASX:RMS) in 2013.
This operation mined 147,400t of ore with an average grade of 4.7g/t to produce 20,400oz of gold from an open cut pit with a depth of ~70m.
Gold prices at that time were close to three times lower than current prices, which indicates plenty of potential for mining to resume.
It certainly doesn’t hurt that the Eastern Goldfields region, where the project is located, is among the world’s great gold domains, while Coogee itself sits within a highly fertile greenstone belt with numerous gold deposits and abundant gold occurrences nearby.
Mitchell says the company is now planning the next phase of extensional drilling to the west of the existing resource with a view to increasing its tonnage and grade.
This will test high priority geophysics and magnetic anomaly targets with drilling expected to begin in the December quarter.
In addition, JAV will assess the potential for early cash flow from the sale or toll treatment of material from below and around the Coogee open pit to nearby operating gold mines.
