PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Openpit mining at the Deflector gold project, in Western Australia, was slated to start in February next year, with underground mining to follow in May.
Gold miner Doray Minerals said on Wednesday that the commissioning of a new purpose-built processing plant would also follow in May or June next year.
The Deflector mine was expected to deliver first gold by mid-2016. The openpit operation was expected to produce 1 972 oz of gold and the underground mine would deliver 348 592 oz of gold, over a mine life of about six years.
Yearly production had been targeted at 61 000 oz to 74 500 oz of gold. The A$67.6-million project would push Doray’s production to between 150 000 oz/y and 160 000 oz/y, with production also sourced from the Andy Well mine, in Western Australia.
Doray on Thursday told shareholders that the company was in the final stages of negotiating an offtake agreement for the sale of the gold/copper/silver concentrate to be produced at Deflector.