JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Western Australian gold miner Millennium Minerals has completed the first step in its strategy to establish a plus-five-year mine life at its Nullagine gold project in the Pilbara, with a 20% increase in ore reserves to 221 600 oz.

Following a 246 000 m drilling campaign in 2017, the company increased the project’s ore reserves to 221 600 oz, from 185 900 oz last year (net of mining depletion of 84 808 oz for the 2017 calendar year).

The average grade of the updated ore reserve has increased from 1.4 g/t to 1.67 g/t, reflecting the company’s continued focus on delineating larger, higher grade ore sources across the Nullagine project.

Total group mineral resources at December, net of mining depletion, stand at 22.80-million tonnes at 1.5 g/t for 1.12-million ounces, with about 65% of the total in the higher confidence measured and indicated categories.

Millennium CEO Peter Cash said in a statement on Monday that the company would take the second step in its strategy to establish a five-year life at Nullagine in the next quarter, when completion of the expansion study would pave the way for its entire mineral inventory to be reviewed.

“This is an interim upgrade based solely on the results of our extensive exploration programme last year – which once again was extremely successful in continuing to push out our mine life while replacing mined ounces,” he said.

“Our focus on aggressively growing our oxide reserves will continue this year but, at the same time, we are also on the cusp of being able to unlock our extensive sulphide mineral resource inventory, which is the company’s most significant asset.

“As soon as we complete the current Nullagine expansion study based on the recently outlined processing solution, we will be in a position to re-optimise our entire gold inventory and target the conversion of a significant portion of the large sulphide resource inventory to ore reserves – paving the way for a substantial increase in production and mine life.”