Auric Mining has notched a major milestone with all of the gold from the first 36,000-tonne parcel of ore from its Jeffreys Find project near Norseman delivered to the Perth Mint for its final refining process.
A total of seven doré bars have been transported to the Perth facility, where the semi-pure alloy will be refined into its purest form of the precious yellow metal. Gold doré is a semi-pure alloy of gold and other metals that is the final output from the toll milling process that was undertaken for the company at the Greenfields Mill in Coolgardie.
Auric Mining managing director Mark English said: “Today is an exciting milestone for Auric and our shareholders. We have gone from purchasing Jeffreys Find to mining it and producing gold within 2.5 years of our ASX listing. There is a lot more work to be done, results to be received and cash generated from this stage one mining of Jeffreys Find.”
Auric’s joint venture (JV) partner and experienced mining contractor, Kalgoorlie-based BML Ventures, will incur and pay all costs in relation to mining the gold resource at Jeffreys Find. The two companies will then retain an equal share of the net cash surplus after the payment of all mining and processing costs, providing Auric with a substantial cash boost that is expected to land in the next two month.
Jeffreys Find holds 1.21 million tonnes grading 1.22 grams per tonne gold for a total of 47,200 ounces. Management says the operation is on target to achieve its first-phase ambition of mining and processing 150,000 to 180,000 tonnes from the mine.
The project budgeted for a gold price of $2600 per ounce. However, with the current price of gold at about $2950 per ounce, the JV is now placed in a more favourable position.
Auric was established less than three years ago to explore for gold and other deposits in WA’s Widgiemooltha and Norseman areas. It has 640 square kilometres of tenements in four project areas.
The company says it plans to put its surplus cash to work by continuing with the development of its Munda gold deposit at Widgiemooltha. Munda hosts a resource of about 198,700 ounces of gold at a grade of 1.38g/t and is conveniently located about 34km south-west of the mining town of Kambalda. It sits just 3km south-west of Mincor Resources’ Widgiemooltha gold project, which has a mineral resource of 4.3 million tonnes at 2g/t gold for 273,600 ounces.
Considering the number of gold projects that never get to the production stage, Auric’s achievement is quite remarkable. To go from a listed company to gold producer in less than three years is a just reward for effort.
And delivering all of the gold from the company’s first parcel of ore during the second day of the annual Diggers and Dealers cavalcade puts a slather of sweet icing on the cake.
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By Michael Philipps
