Name of the Project
Leonora gold project (LGP).

Location
The project is located 30 km north-east of the mining town of Leonora, in Western Australia.

Client
Kin Mining.

Project Description
A prefeasibility study (PFS) completed on the LGP has demonstrated the potential for the project to be a low-risk, high-margin gold producer.

The PFS envisages the mining and on-site treatment of:
• Mertondale, comprising the Mertons Reward, Mertondale 3-4, Tonto, Eclipse and Mertondale 5 deposits;
• Cardinia, comprising the Bruno-Lewis, Lewis South, Kyte and Helens-Rangoon deposits; and
• Raeside, comprising the Michelangelo-Leonardo and Forgotten four deposits.

Ore production from these mining areas is expected to be delivered to a new, centrally located carbon-in-leach (CIL) gold treatment facility at Cardinia. All openpits will be mined using conventional benching using a hydraulic excavator and dump trucks.

A new standalone 750 000 t/y conventional CIL treatment plant is proposed for the LGP, with the capacity to be expanded to an estimated 1.2-million tonnes a year in Year 3.

The proposed plant will incorporate a three-stage crushing circuit feeding a ball mill, a gravity circuit and a CIL circuit, using established technologies.

Tailings will be deposited into the existing Bruno pit (Stage 1), followed by adjacent pits (Stage 2), and then finally into a conventional tailings storage facility, or TSF (Stage 3).

Waste mined as part of the mining cycle from the Bruno-Lewis pits will be used for the construction of the TSF embankment.

A 60-person accommodation camp will be built on site at Cardinia.

The project has an initial mine life of 6.5 years with considerable exploration upside.

Jobs to be Created
Not stated.

Net Present Value/Internal Rate of Return
The project has a net present value, at an 8% discount rate, of A$71-million and an internal rate of return of 58%, with a payback of about 18 months.

Value
The project has an estimated pre-production capital cost of A$34.6-million, including a 15% contingency.

Duration
First gold production, based on the PFS production forecast, is targeted for mid-2018.

Latest Developments
Kin Mining has defined a one-million-ounce resource at the LGP.

The company has told shareholders that the project hosts an estimated 22.3-million tonnes of ore, grading 1.43 g/t gold for 1.02-million ounces of gold.

About 75% of the resource is estimated in the indicated category, with the remainder classified as inferred.

“This is an outstanding result which gives Kin a clear pathway to project development, production and cash flow,” Kin MD Don Harpe has said.

“The new resource estimate provides a strong foundation for the estimation of the maiden ore reserve at the Leonora project, which will form part of the definitive feasibility study set for completion later this quarter’.

Harper has said that there is also potential to increase the inventory within the Leonora district, with Kin pursuing that upside in parallel with its project development plan.

In August, Kin acquired a 2.5 MW ball mill for less than A$1-million for the Leonora project, boosting up-front mill throughput at the project.

The ball mill will provide single-stage primary grinding of the Cardinia ores, at a throughput rate of 1.2-million tonnes a year.

As the project transitions to mining of the harder primary ores, mill throughput will be maintained with the inclusion of the recently acquired Lawlers 600 kW ball mill.

Key Contracts and Suppliers
None stated.

On Budget and on Time?
Not stated.

Contact Details for Project Information
Kin Mining, tel +61 8 9242 2227 or email info@kinmining.com.au.