PERTH (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed Blackham Resources is considering doubling the processing capacity at its Matilda/Wiluna gold project, in Western Australia, on the back of an increase in the operation's mineral resource.

The resource at Matilda/Wiluna had grown to 6.4-million ounces, with some 3.1-million ounces classified as measured and indicated, the company reported on Monday.

As a result of the 25% increase in resources since the last quarter, Blackham is advancing its mining and processing studies to increase the processing capacity at the mine to more efficiently develop the large resource base.

In addition to the recently refurbished 1.7-million-tonne-a-year oxide circuit, Blackham is weighing the addition of a 1.5-million crushing, grinding and flotation circuit to feed the existing bacterial oxidation plant.

This will see total capacity reach about 3.2-million tonnes a year across the oxide and sulphide circuits, which will all be located at the Wiluna processing hub.

Blackham told shareholders that the expanded Wiluna plant would bring significant economies of scale to the combined project, with all the resources being within a 20 km radius of the processing plant.

“The latest Wiluna resource upgrade is likely to add significant baseload openpit and high-grade underground feed for the Wiluna expansion study,” said Blackham MD Bryan Dixon.

“Mining studies are aimed at feeding half of the planned 1.5-million tonnes a year of additional throughput from openpits and half from the underground. These resource upgrades over the last five weeks give us confidence that we can expand the combined operation of three-million tonne a year, at 3 g/t gold with a long mine life.”

The Wiluna operation produced 9 240 oz of gold during its first quarter of production, after achieving its first gold pour in October last year.