PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Australian gold-miner Citigold has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with China’s Henan Jinqu Gold (Jinqu) to jointly develop a 200 000 oz/y gold mine in Queensland.

Citigold and its Chinese partner will form a joint-venture (JV) company to develop the City mines of the Charters Towers gold project.

City includes the Sunburst, Brilliant and Day Dawn reefs, which the JV company would develop together as one “supermine”, Citigold said in a statement.

Jinqu could acquire up to a 50% interest in the JV company, which would own granted mining leases with permits to mine and associated infrastructure, containing a gold mineral resource of 1,8-million ounces.

The City mining area is where Citigold carried out the initial exploration in the 1990s after acquiring the first part of the Charters Towers goldfield. Full control of the goldfield was obtained in 2004.

Citigold has internally budgeted that the development of the City operations should take 24-months and cost up to A$70-million.

The company said that the development of the City project was to be separate from the 100% owned Warrior mine, also in Queensland, and the existing 340 000-t capacity gold processing plant.

Jinqu’s main industry is the exploration, mining, processing and smelting of gold. The company is also engaged in the research, development, production and sales of synthetic diamonds. The company is a member of the Shanghai Gold Exchange.

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