JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – An independent technical review of ASX-listed Crater Gold’s Golden Gate graphite project, in North Queensland, has presented a strong business case to support the development of the project.
The independent review by N H Cole and Associates (NC) of the Golden Gate project concluded that the project “ranked in world terms”, Crater Gold reported on Monday.
The NC study stated that the project appeared to be amenable to simple, low-cost openpit mining and that there appeared to be no “insurmountable constraints to taking the project forward”.
The study estimated a likely yearly production rate of between two-million and three-million tonnes a year of ore, meaning aggregate mine tonnages plus waste would be in the range of six-million to nine-million tonnes of material.
“Golden Gate represents an excellent opportunity to tap into the growing demand for very high-purity graphite, which is in very limited global supply. Given the positive findings from the NC independent expert report, Golden Gate certainly has the potential to advance rapidly and we are planning the next phase of activities with a priority to upgrade the resource to Joint Ore Reserve Committee 2014 compliance,” said MD Russ Parker.
The Golden Gate project is located about 80 km south of Metallica Minerals’ recent discovery at Esmeralda graphite project, where the potential has been confirmed for a high-purity graphite product.
Parker added that gold sales and accelerating production from the HGZ gold mine, in Papua New Guinea, would place the company in good stead to fund development of other assets, such as the Australian graphite project.