PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Junior miner A1 Minerals on Thursday reported that the first gold pour at its BrightStar gold project, in Western Australia, would take place next week.

The gold pour would follow the completion of construction at the company’s fully-owned gold plant, which is adjacent to its first mining site, the Beta Pit, within its BrightStar gold project.

A1 MD John Williams said the company was looking forward to the first gold pour, which would be completed slightly behind schedule.

The delay was primarily owing to the limited availability of skilled and technical workers, which he said were impacting on project developments in Western Australia. Additionally, A1 had some technical challenges in bringing the refurbished plant up to operating standard.

“We regret the small setback we have experienced in our production schedule, however, we are now proceeding to full production and look forward to seeing the first gold bar from BrightStar next week,” Williams said.

Beta is the first pit developed on A1’s BrightStar leases, which stretch north and south of Laverton and have a proven Joint Ore Reserve Committee (Jorc) reserve of 150 000 oz of gold but a Jorc resource of 1,7-million ounces.

Recent exploration activity identified a new zone of shallow mineralisation within 400 m of the plant where assay results have returned quality grades of up to 6 m at 63 g/t gold.

The mill has a capacity of 300 000 t/y which, on established reserves, should provide 30 000 oz/y, for at least four years. The processing plant has been set up for a planned expansion to up to 750 000 t/y which will be undertaken as soon as revenue from gold production can accommodate it.

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