Classic Minerals has ticked the last box on the pathway to production at its high-grade Kat Gap project after the Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety granted its mining lease application. Kat Gap threw up some spectacular high-grade results last year which prompted the company to purchase a mobile plant to mine the near-surface deposit.
The grant of a mining lease in Western Australia’s Forrestania mining belt south of Southern Cross is a significant shot in the arm for Classic as it readies the project for production.
Sitting just south of the old Forrestania gold mine, Kat Gap has an initial JORC inferred resource of 92,869 ounces at a grade of 2.96 grams per tonne.
Mineralisation at the project has shown capacity for between 95 per cent and 96 per cent recovery from both oxide and fresh samples from conventional cyanide leach processing.
The Bounty gold mine further north at Forrestania, developed by Aztec Mining in the 1980s, also precipitated a gold mining revival at Marvel Loch closer to Southern Cross, which is ongoing.
Management says the gravity circuit within its mobile “Gekko” plant was now completed.
The company says extensive surface quartz float across the broader project area indicates that Kat gap may not be an orphan in the area.
Ongoing drilling is expected to upgrade the resource which to date has shown spectacular and mostly shallow hits.
Better numbers include 4 metres grading 86 g/t gold, including 1m at 304 g/t from 79m depth, 3m at 62.1 g/t including 1m at 181 g/t from 36m, and 10m at 30.77 g/t including 2m @ 116.1 g/t gold from 28m depth.
Classic Minerals Chairman, John Lester described the granting of the Kat Gap lease as a “major company-defining moment.”
He said: “We are now able to formally transform Classic from an explorer to a miner, in a move we believe will provide value accretion for our shareholders.”
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