Westgold Resources has announced a maiden mineral resource estimate (MRE) of 2.3 million ounces (Moz) of gold for the Fletcher Zone within the Beta Hunt mine in Western Australia.
The stage one MRE includes 31 million tonnes at 2.3 grams per tonne of gold and nearly doubles Beta Hunt’s existing mineral resource, as reported in September 2024.
The resource upgrade comes from the first kilometre of the known 2km strike of the Fletcher Zone, with a stage two drill program planned to test the remaining strike and depth extensions.
“Westgold is rapidly unlocking the value we identified at Beta Hunt,” Westgold managing director and chief executive officer Wayne Bramwell said.
“This is a circa 7km long, multi-lode mineralised system that is under-drilled and the company has delivered a maiden mineral resource of 2.3Moz from the Fletcher Zone, from just 1km of Fletcher’s apparent strike.”
The stage one Fletcher mineralisation extends over a zone up to 500m in width with a vertical extent exceeding 800m.
“This result points to the growth potential of Beta Hunt, and while this is a material milestone for Westgold, it is simply the first step on what is likely to be a multi-decade journey for Fletcher in an expanded Beta Hunt mine plan,” Bramwell said.
“Critically, mine life at Beta Hunt today exceeds 10 years without any contribution from Fletcher.
“Mine outputs are lifting from the existing Western Flanks and A zone mining areas and this improvement provides scope to evaluate the optimum mining and processing strategy for Fletcher, as it represents a transformational opportunity to further expand the scale of Beta Hunt outputs.”
The announcement comes as Westgold initiates resource conversion drilling to target a maiden ore reserve in the 2025–26 financial year.
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