RE:Beta Hunt extends again to 35koz The company that discovered astonishing gold specimens heralded as some of the biggest ever found last month at a Kambalda mine has extended the size of the discovery for a third time to up to 35,000 ounces.
The announcement came on the same day Beta Hunt gold mine owner RNC Minerals put the biggest of the stones on public display for the first time yesterday at the Precious Metals Investment Symposium in Perth.
RNC Minerals’ Toronto-based chief executive Mark Selby saw the specimens for the first time on Tuesday at Beta Hunt, and said there was evidence the Father’s Day Vein discovery would continue to deliver gold, with mining to resume at the 500m deep gold reef this week.
The “strike” of the sediment structure extending from the find has been extended from 200m to 540m, leading up dip and along from the 5000g per tonne find.
“It’s amazing how much gold came out of one space,” he said yesterday.
“The last number we gave was 24,000oz, and now we’re guiding to 30,000oz-35,000oz.
“You can see lots of visible gold sitting there, so we’ve tried to overachieve with every number that we’ve put out, so we’re pretty confident that the next set of firings (will deliver more).
“We want to take a specimen out the back that has that golden butte in it, so now we can resume firing that stuff and we should be able to pull out a decent chunk of ounces there.”
RNC estimates between $50 million and $58 million worth of gold will be delivered from the “living room-sized” cut at a minimum.
The company has renamed the biggest specimen — 93kg of rock containing 2440oz of gold worth $4 million — the King Henry after Henry Dole, the airleg driller credited with the discovery.
Mr Selby said pending export permits, the stones were set for a whirlwind tour of museums and gem shows around the world ahead of an auction in early 2019.
“We’ve been approached by a number of museums to display the specimens and a number of gem and specimen shows have also shown interest,” he said.
“So we’re working on putting together a campaign to give visibility — it’s one of the great gold discoveries of the last however many years and these specimens are pretty spectacular.”
Mr Selby said the funds from the find would be used to increase exploration and target sediments beneath the discovery, with RNC’s geologists believing gold grades at the former nickel mine increased at depth.
“Maybe we can narrow them down to a certain area, mine along that structure and every so often we know we’ll hit one of these jewellery boxes full of gold,” he said.
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