White Rock Minerals Ltd. provided an update on its in-mine exploration drilling activities at the Morning Star Underground Gold Mine at Woods Point in northeast Victoria. White Rock has completed an extensional diamond drilling program along strike from historic McNally Reef mining. The McNally Reef was the focus of the most recent underground mining activity at Morning Star, in production between January and September 2020, which saw approximately 7,600t at a grade of 12.3g/t gold processed through the mill, with an estimated 3,000 ounces recovered.

This gold grade puts the Morning Star Gold Mine in the Top Five high-grade gold mines in Australia. White Rock is completing pre-production activities which have included an extensional drilling program targeting the McNally Reef to the north and south along strike of the 2020 mining activity. It completed 18 drillholes for 1,392m of diamond drilling.

This drilling has highlighted a potentially significant high-grade gold zone to the south, close to existing development. On-reef mining of the McNally Reef has already commenced. White Rock's commitment to re-commencing gold production at the Morning Star Underground Gold Mine has seen the commencement of pre-production development at the McNally Reef, with underground development and rising being conducted.

Development has focused on establishing access to the lower (eastern) levels of the McNally Reef on 7 level and 8 Level, material movement infrastructure with strike driving along the reef, and the establishment of access to the Dickenson Reef in the upper Dickenson project area on 4 level. The mining activities are focused on delivering high grade tonnes to the gold plant for processing, sourced from multiple working faces underground across multiple mining areas. White Rock has identified up to five such mining areas to date.

Narrow vein mining techniques are being employed to reduce the amount of waste rock mined and processed. This ensures that the gold feed grade is as high as possible for the processing plant. Split face firing and benched drive development techniques are being utilised to reduce gold grade dilution, by firing the reef and waste separately.

This selective mining technique aims to reduce the amount of waste rock hauled and processed without reducing recovered gold. Material movement and haulage routes are being optimised, with the purchase of additional mining equipment2 allowing greater flexibility and productivity in materials handling and movement. Multiple mining fronts within multiple mining areas also add flexibility to the mining schedule allowing resources to be deployed and optimised appropriately.

White Rock has commenced gold processing plant pre-production commissioning works with startup commissioning material (low grade) being processed. Optimisation works and process reviews are being undertaken to improve the overall plant performance. Piping, screens and crushing units have all been stripped, refurbished and improved in preparation for upcoming higher-grade material processing.

Initial gold production remains on track for Quarter 3 2022, moving White Rock into the league of gold producers. White Rock holds 660km2 of granted Exploration Licences over the Woods Point ­ Walhalla Geosyncline between Jamieson and Walhalla and two granted Mining Licences (MIN5009 & MIN5299), covering the Morning Star Gold Mine and the Rose of Denmark Mine. The Project is situated approximately 120km east of Melbourne.

The Woods Point Gold Project is centred on the core area of the Walhalla Synclinorium that hosts gold mineralisation related to the Woods Point Dyke Swarm. The Walhalla Synclinorium contains 320 primary gold mineral occurrences with recorded production of 5.15 Million ounces of gold. There are three significant deposits that account for 4.4 Million ounces of recorded production: Walhalla (3Moz), Morning Star (900koz) and A1 (500koz).

The Woods Point Gold Project contains: 197 or 60% of the 320 known historic primary gold mineral occurrences within the Walhalla Synclinorium. 95% of all historic gold production outside of the 3 major deposits (Walhalla, Morning Star & A1). 73 mineral occurrences with recorded production grades >10g/t gold3, Including 34 mineral occurrences >30g/t gold, and Including 22 mineral occurrences >60g/t gold.

Only 8 gold prospects have public records of previous drilling3. Multiple historic mines with significant production have never been drilled. The majority of historic gold mining was restricted to levels above the water table, usually less than 100 metres vertically (except for the 3 major deposits: Walhalla, Morning Star & A1).

White Rock has identified the Wallaby-Eldorado-Shakespeare trend as a high priority target with Wallaby ready for drill testing, subject to an approved Work Plan. Approvals for this have commenced. Wallaby is a dyke bulge with similar width and quartz reef development to Morning Star and has never been drilled.

The overall Wallaby-Eldorado-Shakespeare trend extends for over 2,000 metres with the potential for a large dyke host to be defined in multiple dyke bulge positions or as a continuous structure. Historic production records indicate 24,000 ounces of gold was produced from the three mines with Eldorado recording production at a grade of 75g/t gold.