JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The countdown has started for the biggest gold mine to come on line in Australia in six years, with ASX-listed Dacian Gold awarding the final material contract required for the 200 000 oz/y Mt Morgans mine, near Laverton, Western Australia, to start production.
The company awarded the mining contract for the Jupiter openpit to Macmahon Contractors, which will start mining operations at the Heffernans Hill area this month. First gold production and cash flow are expected to follow within 17 weeks.
The Mt Morgans project, which has a capital cost of A$197-million, is based on a 2.5-million-tonne-a-year carbon-in-leach (CIL) operation, fed from a large underground mining complex at Westralia, comprising the Beresford and Allanson underground mines, and one large openpit at Jupiter.
Executive chairperson Rohan Williams reported on Friday that project construction was progressing rapidly. The CIL treatment plant was more than 75% complete, underground mining were 743 m ahead of schedule and eight drilling rigs were on site.
The openpit mining contract will have an initial term of 60 months and three option periods extending over an additional 31 months, representing the current scheduled life of the pit, which has a maiden ore reserve of 14.8-million tonnes at 1.4 g/t gold for 643 000 oz.
First ore at Mt Morgans was mined at the Beresford underground mine, where mining operations started in mid-May.