ASX-listed Kalgoorlie gold producer, Horizon Minerals, has poured first gold from the third and final instalment of toll milling ore that was mined from trial open pits at its flagship Boorara project, 10km east of Kalgoorlie-Boulder.
The Perth-based company anticipates the treatment of approximately 45,000 tonnes of ore, sourced from the Crown Jewel and Regal West trial pits, will return recovered gold grades of between 1.6 grams per tonne and 2.0 g/t.
Gold production and revenues from the third round of toll processing are forecast at between 2,100 ounces and 2,600 ounces at 92 per cent gold recovery for between $5.3 million and $6.6 million, respectively. Horizon’s revenue estimates assume a received gold price of A$2,550 an ounce.
Golden Mile Milling, or “GMM”, has been carrying out the processing of ore mined from the three Boorara trial pits – Regal East, Regal West and Crown Jewel – under the two parties’ toll milling arrangement at its Lakewood plant, 7km west of Boorara.
Earlier this year, the other two parcels of GMM-milled ore sourced from the trial pits culminated in a total 2,895 ounces of gold production, which realised an average sale price of $2,700 an ounce for gross revenues of approximately $7.82 million.
Horizon says a full production and cost reconciliation from the Boorara trial mining and toll treatment exercise will be released after the last milling campaign has concluded, which is scheduled to take place in January 2021.
The company then intends to plug the numbers from the Boorara trial into an updated mineral resource estimate in the March 2021 quarter. It hopes results from the trial will verify the tonnage and grade uplift potential at Boorara when compared to the resource model, leading to the revised mineral resource estimate.
Mine optimisation and design work earmarked to follow on from the new mineral resource estimate will go towards the calculation of maiden ore reserves for Boorara as the basis for the project’s definitive feasibility study and an initial mine development plan.
Horizon Minerals Managing Director, Jon Price said: “In the last six months, we have been mining, milling, drilling, consolidating and evaluating to support the larger-scale development. Boorara will provide the base-load feed and mill site and the satellite projects including Crake, Teal, Rose Hill and now Kalpini are being assessed to complement Boorara in the initial five-year production profile.”
Horizon is aiming to unveil the definitive feasibility study on a proposed stand-alone gold operation in the June quarter next year. The measured, indicated and inferred resource for Boorara currently stands at 16.45 million tonnes grading 0.96 g/t for 507,000oz of contained gold.
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