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Astral Resources has returned further high-grade gold results at its Mandilla project in Western Australia, with drilling at the Theia deposit delivering an average grade above the production target for the proposed stage one open pit.
The latest 65 reverse circulation (RC) holes, totalling 6876m, returned a weighted average grade of 1.51 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, exceeding the 1.1g/t production target outlined in the project’s pre-feasibility study (PFS).
Standout intersections included 15m at 7.54g/t gold from 95m, including 1m at 84.4g/t gold, alongside 4m at 18.4g/t gold from 110m and 4m at 11.3g/t gold from 112m.
Astral managing director Marc Ducler said the results supported the company’s efforts to improve confidence in the early stages of mining.
“The PFS stage one open pit at Theia has a production target of 4.2Mt at 1.1g/t Au over the first 21 months of operation,” Ducler said.
“This ongoing program of in-fill drilling will support the conversion of the entire stage 1 pit into the higher-confidence measured resource category.”
The drilling forms part of a 44,400m program designed to validate Theia’s geological and mineral resource models ahead of Mandilla’s DFS, scheduled for completion in the March quarter of 2027.
Astral has completed 303 holes totalling 30,973m, with another 129 holes covering approximately 12,616m planned.
“The in-fill program has been a highly successful exercise, with this latest batch of results returning a weighted average grade of 1.51g/t Au, well above the production target grade,” Ducler said.
Theia hosts approximately 1.4 million ounces of gold within Mandilla’s broader 1.74-million-ounce mineral resource, making it the cornerstone of the proposed development.
The latest results follow recent high-grade drilling at Theia Deeps, where Astral identified mineralisation beneath the existing resource shell, strengthening the potential for future underground mining beyond the proposed open pits.
The company has also secured development tenure through an agreement with WIN Metals and progressed the acquisition of additional mineral rights from Estrella Resources, addressing constraints around Mandilla’s planned development footprint.
Meanwhile, Astral recently increased the mineral resource at its Spargoville gold project by 102 per cent to 281,000 ounces, lifting its total group resource to approximately 2.21 million ounces.
Ducler said the ongoing drilling continued to identify substantial mineralised zones within the Stage 1 footprint.
“We continue to see substantial widths of mineralisation together with discrete high-grade zones… in addition to numerous other significant intercepts,” he said.
With two drill rigs operating at Theia, Astral is continuing its stage 1 infill campaign alongside deeper exploration aimed at expanding the project’s longer-term mining opportunities.
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