JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed Tyranna Resources will next week start surface drilling at its Eureka gold mine, north of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, to follow up a compelling surface lateritic gold target discovered during a recent field mapping exercise.

The mine, which Tyranna is acquiring from Canada-listed Central Iron Ore, is currently being mined by a local contractor, Eureka Mines. Production is scheduled to extend the depth of the current openpit by about 20 m and will be completed in the March quarter.

Approvals to start exploration and resource/reserve definition drilling have been received.

About 1 500 m to 2 000 m will be drilled in two stages, with about 1 000 m of drilling to follow up on the gold target.

Stage 2 of the drill campaign is planned for late March/early April as the mining campaign is completed.

The drilling is intended to bring the historic mineral resource in compliance with the Joint Ore Reserves Committee 2012 and also to provide geotechnical samples, for which an optical televiewer is to be used for increased structural information collection and interpretation and metallurgical testwork.

Upon receipt of the drill results, Tyranna will start a mining feasibility study to evaluate the possibility of mining and toll treating at nearby processing mills.

First ore is targeted for treatment at the Lakewood toll milling facility and Tyranna is to receive a 4% net smelter royalty generated from the sale of any gold from this mining campaign.

Tyranna has further retained geological consultant Richard Maddocks, who previously held senior management positions with companies such as Saracen Mineral Holdings, Troy Resources and Placer Dome.

Maddocks was also chief geologist at the Paddington gold mine, in Western Australia and has extensive local knowledge and experience on the Bardoc Tectonic Zone which hosts the Eureka Gold deposit. He will manage the mining study to transform Tyranna to a producer by mining a cutback at the Eureka openpit.

Commenting on the progress at Eureka, Tyranna MD Bruno Seneque on Thursday stated that the company was fortunate “to have boots on the ground at Eureka” after only making the acquisition a month ago.

“This is the beginning of our journey to transform Tyranna to producer status within a
relatively short time frame,” he noted.

Seneque added that the upcoming drilling will enhance the exploration outside the known pit mineralisation, while grade control drilling for the planned cutback will start immediately after the local contractor has completed the mining within the pit.