Barton Gold Completes Phase 2 Upgrade Drilling at Tunkillia Project

Barton Gold (ASX: BGD) (OTCQB: BGDFF) has completed a Phase 2 resource upgrade drilling campaign at its Tunkillia gold project in South Australia.

The company has now drilled a total of 520 reverse circulation and diamond holes for 57,653 metres during the Phase 1 and Phase 2 campaigns, with the aim of upgrading mineralisation identified in the Tunkillia optimised scoping study to the Indicated and Measured categories.

The S1 starter pit has been modelled to yield 206,000 ounces gold and 491,000oz silver at a cash cost of $997/oz to produce over $800 million in operating cash, repaying the development more than twice over in the first year.

The S1 and S2 pits have been modelled to produce 365,000oz gold, 923,000oz silver, and $1.75 billion in free cash during the first 27 months of operation (using current commodity prices).

The proceeds are expected to repay upfront development costs more than four times over in this period of time.

Expanded Phase 2 Campaign

Interim analysis of Phase 1 assays identified the potential to extend Tunkillia’s total mineralisation, increase the mineral resource estimate, and improve the grade, profile, and classification of a larger proportion of starter pit mineralisation than was originally planned.

In June, Barton added 10,500m of drilling to expand the Phase 2 campaign to 40,000m with the aim of materially enhancing Tunkillia’s economics by adding new gold and silver ounces to the optimised open pit outlines.

Results from drilling in the project’s Area 51 zone supported the planned resource classification work.

These included 13m at 5.01 grams per tonne gold with 3m at 15.8g/t, 19m at 2.87g/t with 6m at 7.18g/t, and 29m at 1.24g/t.

Proceeding to Plan

Barton managing director Alex Scanlon said the Phase 2 campaign had proceeded to plan, thanking his team for their “massive efforts”.

“Our drilling programs over the past five months have included four rigs across three different project sites, which all then converged on Tunkillia’s Phase 2 drillout,” he said.

“The results to date have generally exceeded expectations, with positive surprises in some zones offering material upside potential.”

A pre-feasibility study (PFS) is underway for a large-scale gold development, with publication targeted for the first quarter of calendar year 2027 and a Mining Lease application planned to follow.

The PFS will assess the technical and economic basis for development using the upgraded resource model, with Barton expecting to release a significant volume of outstanding assays and resource updates in the coming months.