Benz traces high-grade gold zones at Glenburgh

Benz Mining (TSXV: BZ; ASX: BNZ) cut 41 metres grading 14.5 grams gold per tonne at its Glenburgh project in Western Australia, showing tighter drilling could add ounces inside the known Icon deposit.

Hole 26CN079 hit the interval from 260 metres downhole. A second hole returned 75 metres at 2.3 grams from 253 metres at Icon, part of the Glenburgh project about 730 km north of Perth in the Gascoyne region.

“What excites us at Icon is that every new drill line seems to reveal more of the system,” CEO Mark Lynch-Staunton said in the Monday release. “As drilling tightens, new NE-plunging high-grade hinge zones keep emerging, unlocking substantial additional ounce potential within the existing footprint.”

Vancouver-based Benz plans to turn Glenburgh’s mostly drill-supported exploration target into a maiden resource in the first half of next year. If the fold model holds across the project, Benz could capture more gold inside areas earlier drilling had already tested, not just through riskier step-outs.

Benz shares have risen nearly sixfold over the past year. They jumped 19% Tuesday in Toronto to $3.75 apiece, valuing the company at $1.3 billion (US$924 million). The stock has traded between 66¢ and $3.86 over the period.

Hidden hinges

Benz is drilling Icon on a 50-by-25-metre pattern. Earlier explorers used wider-spaced, shallow holes that failed to resolve the project’s tightly folded rocks. Benz’s model places much of the high-grade gold in the bent parts of those folds, which plunge northeast through the deposit.

Another new hole, 26CN074, returned 39 metres grading 3.6 grams from 186 metres, including 8 metres at 15.6 grams from 192 metres. The same structural pattern appears at Hurricane, supporting Benz’s use of the model beyond Icon. Benz has not yet established the holes’ true widths.

Resource test

Glenburgh’s 2024 resource totals 16.3 million tonnes grading 1 gram gold per tonne for 510,100 contained ounces. Benz’s much larger exploration target ranges from 485 million to 540 million tonnes grading 0.65 to 0.69 gram for 10.1 million to 12 million oz. gold.

About 80% of the target rests on drilling and modelled mineralized zones. The balance relies on geological projections beyond current holes.

Work ahead

Benz plans to finish the same drill pattern across Hurricane, Icon and Thunderbolt before completing the resource model. Nine rigs are working at Glenburgh, where the company had drilled more than 210,000 metres by early August and plans another 250,000 metres before year-end.

The Thunderbolt target, which Benz began drilling this year, had only been tested to less than 100 metres in earlier campaigns.

Glenburgh already has a mining lease, clearing permit, water licence and Native Title agreement. Carbon-in-leach tests recovered more than 95% of the gold, reducing two common early development risks, permitting and processing, even as Benz works to prove the project’s scale.

Benz also owns the Eastmain gold project in Quebec and the Mt Egerton gold project in Western Australia, giving it a global inferred and indicated resource base of about 1.54 million oz. gold at about 2.2 grams per tonne.