Auric Mining has produced an additional 4300 gold ounces from its second campaign at its Jeffreys Find gold mine near Norseman in Western Australia and expects to rake in more than $28 million in gross revenue from stage-one production.
Management says the project has been underway for several months, with a maiden parcel of 36,180 tonnes already milled at the Greenfields mill in Coolgardie at 93.04 per cent recovery, yielding 1721 ounces of gold from a head grade of 1.58 grams per tonne.
The company believes the current parcel of between 145,000 and 150,000 tonnes will soon be completely processed, with the gold set to be despatched to the Perth Mint for sale. First cash from gold at Jeffreys Find is expected to land in the coffers this month.
Auric says it is aiming to process 180,000 tonnes during stage-one production and is confident of completing the process within time, yield and budget parameters.
The Jeffreys Find deposit boasts 1.21 million tonnes grading 1.22g/t gold for a total of 47,200 ounces. With a mine life of just under two years, Auric appears to have a profitable mining operation based on a gold price of $2600 per ounce. The current price of gold in Australia is hovering around the $2900 per ounce mark.
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.
Auric Mining managing director Mark English said: “The first surplus cash is now spinning out the end. Based on what we already know we expect gross revenue generated from this first stage to be in excess of $28 million, which means the partners in this project are going to split millions in surplus cash.”
The company acquired the tenement from Mincor Resources just three years ago and it is already producing cash. Mr English said that would allow the Auric to inject millions of dollars into its ongoing development – and more specifically at its 100 per cent-owned Munda gold deposit near Widgiemooltha.
Auric was established in 2020 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.
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’s Widgiemooltha gold project, which has a mineral resource of 4.3 million tonnes at 2g/t gold for 273,600 ounces.
A recently-released scoping study on Munda outlined a cashflow surplus of $76.9 million under a base-case scenario using an assumed gold price of $2600 per ounce.
But with higher gold prices and both grade and recoveries coming in at the higher end of Auric’s expectations at Jefferys Find, the ringing of the till will already be sweet music to management’s ears.
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By Michael Philipps
