Broken Hill Gold has lifted the Vertigo deposit’s Indicated oxide resource by 160% and increased White Dam’s global resource to 118,496 ounces. The company is now testing whether shallow material can support a heap-leach restart while drilling deeper gold-copper sulphide potential.
- Vertigo Indicated oxide resource rises to 24,300 ounces
- White Dam global resource reaches 118,496 ounces
- Mining study begins for a potential oxide heap-leach restart
- Eight holes planned to test 650 metres of down-dip sulphide potential
- Fresh-rock resource remains entirely Inferred
Vertigo oxide resource rises to 24,300 ounces
Broken Hill Gold Ltd (ASX:BH6) has put a larger near-term production proposition around its White Dam project, reporting a 160% increase in Vertigo’s Indicated oxide resource to 24,300 ounces of gold. The update takes the company’s total White Dam Mineral Resource to 118,496 ounces, including 43,500 ounces in the Indicated category.
The Vertigo estimate contains 2.30 million tonnes at 0.74 grams per tonne gold for 54,795 ounces. Of that total, 24,300 ounces are Indicated and 30,496 ounces are Inferred. The company says the broader project resource has increased by about 20%, with all of the Indicated Vertigo resource sitting in saprolite and transitional material rather than fresh rock.
Mining study tests a White Dam restart
That weathering profile matters because Broken Hill Gold is not presenting the resource update solely as an exploration milestone. Mine design and evaluation are now underway to assess whether Vertigo’s shallow, heap-leachable material could support a restart of the pit and existing processing pathway. A pre-feasibility study is planned after the remaining oxide resources have been drilled and updated.
The current resource is constrained within a conceptual open-pit shell extending about 95 metres below surface and uses a 0.20 grams per tonne gold cut-off. The optimisation assumed a gold price of A$5,500 an ounce, 80% recovery for saprolite and transitional material, 50% for fresh material, mining costs of A$6.50 a tonne, processing costs of A$12 a tonne and a 7% gold royalty. Those are resource-level assumptions, not a production forecast or demonstrated project economics.
Down-dip sulphide target adds a second track
Beyond the oxide restart case, the more speculative prize lies beneath the pit. Vertigo is described as a thick, flat-dipping tabular zone extending across roughly 900 metres of strike, with gold and copper grades increasing at depth. Eight holes over a 650-metre strike length are scheduled to test extensions up to 200 metres down-dip beyond the current pit limits, while a second multipurpose RC and diamond rig has been mobilised.
Broken Hill Gold is also progressing work at Hannaford East, Icebreaker and Rolling. The company says fine-grind cyanide testwork indicates potential for higher recovery through a conventional CIL circuit, although CIL has not been used to define the current resource or pit shell, and no copper revenue has been credited to the estimate.
Resource growth comes with material qualifications
The 2026 Vertigo estimate is based on 26,403 metres from 500 holes, including 279 RC holes drilled by Broken Hill Gold during 2025 and 2026. Compared with the 2020 estimate of 1.7 million tonnes at 0.7 grams per tonne for 38,300 ounces, contained gold has increased by about 43% to 54,795 ounces. The change also reflects a different reporting basis: the earlier estimate was restricted above 150 metres RL, while the new estimate is constrained within an optimised pit shell.
It remains a Mineral Resource, not an Ore Reserve, and has no demonstrated economic viability. Fresh material accounts for 30,154 Inferred ounces, with no fresh rock classified as Indicated. Vertigo-specific historical recovery cannot be reconciled because Vertigo and Hannaford ore were co-stacked, while the density methods used in the estimate may overstate in-situ density by failing to capture porosity and void space. Further metallurgical and density work is therefore central to converting the headline ounces into a mineable plan.
Bottom Line?
The next test is not the size of the resource but whether oxide recoveries, mining parameters and approvals can turn 24,300 Indicated ounces into a credible restart case.
Questions in the middle?
- Will the mining study show that Vertigo’s shallow oxide material can support an economic restart through the existing heap-leach facilities?
- Can down-dip drilling convert the Inferred fresh-rock inventory into a sufficiently large and confident sulphide development opportunity?
- How will updated column testing affect the recovery assumptions currently used for transitional and fresh material?