KALGOORLIE (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed gold miner Doray Minerals has started site work at the Deflector copper/gold project, in the Murchison region.
The Deflector project was acquired as part of a takeover offer of Mutiny Gold earlier this year, and by May, the Doray board had approved the development of the project.
The Deflector openpit was expected to deliver 61 972 oz of gold, while 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, and 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.
The gold miner said that, in order to have the Deflector project in production by mid-2016, a number of activities have started on site, including the refurbishment of the existing camp, clearing of vegetation and topsoil from the proposed processing plant and new village sites, and upgrading the 6 km access road to the Deflector site.
Doray MD Allan Kelly told delegates at the Diggers & Dealers conference that openpit mining at Deflector was set to start in February 2016, while underground mining would follow in May 2016.
Meanwhile, Kelly noted that discussions were also ongoing with potential funding and offtake partners for the Deflector project.
Doray was hoping to duplicate the funding strategy employed at the Andy Well mine at Deflector, using cash flows from Andy Well to partially fund the development of Deflector to minimise equity requirements.