Barton Gold Holdings (ASX: BGD) (OTCQB: BGDFF) has completed a 5,064 metre reverse circulation drilling campaign at its Tunkillia gold project in South Australia.

The work targeted extensions of the project’s resource block model with a view to upgrading the 1.5 million ounce resource estimate and optimising a scoping study released in July.

Drilling focused on parallel lodes and depth extensions below the optimised open pit in areas where gold mineralisation had previously been intersected but was not included in the estimate due to an insufficient number of data points.

Scoping study

The initial scoping study for Tunkillia was based on the production of 130,000 tonnes of gold per annum with an all-in sustaining cost of $1,917/oz gold and a 40% equity internal rate of return over a 1.9 year payback period.

Production would be driven by a higher-grade ‘starter pit’ outputting approximately 180,000oz of gold during the first 18 months.

Managing director Alexander Scanlon said the company was working non-stop to advance the competitive and large-scale project.

“Tunkillia has demonstrated its attractiveness based on conservative assumptions relating to comminution design, power consumption, development schedule and procurement,” he said.

“The next few quarters will be exciting as we complete an optimised scoping study and turn our attention to identifying options for an initial Stage 1 operation at our Tarcoola project to leverage the existing Central Gawler mill while we pursue permitting at Tunkillia.”

Tarcoola drilling

Barton commenced initial drilling at Tarcoola in November to further explore the recent Tolmer discovery.

The prospect was confirmed in August with the receipt of high-grade assays identifying a gold-mineralised system comprised of quartz sulphide veining hosted within broader zones of alteration.

Best results were 4m at 24.6 grams per tonne, 9m at 3.92g/t and 14m at 1.41g/t.

The 2,000m campaign will test the potential strike of these zones with a view to mapping out a commercial pathway for the potential Stage 1 operations using the fully-permitted mill.