JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The prefeasibility study (PFS) of the Leonora gold project, in Western Australia, is set to receive a facelift, with gold developer Kin Mining announcing on Tuesday that it will update the study completed by the project’s previous owner, Navigator Resources, in 2009.
“With the PFS, Navigator did all the heavy lifting – the gold resources and the outstanding quality and quantity of the data has been hugely beneficial,” said Kin CEO Don Harper.
Kin plans to use Navigator’s historical data to develop an enhanced optimised mine plan. The updated PFS envisages mines at Mertondale, Cardinia, Tonto-Eclipse and Raeside that will deliver ore to a centrally located standalone carbon-in-leach (CIL) gold treatment facility.
The updated study will evaluate the establishment of either a standalone one-million-tonne-a-year processing plant or a standalone 600 000 t/y plant set up for future expansion to one-million tonnes a year.
Kin produced a successful one-million-tonne-a-year processing plant scoping study in May this year, which demonstrated an economically robust and technically viable project with considerable upside.
The March 2009 PFS by Navigator described a base case development scenario for the PFS of an opencut mine delivering one-million tonnes a year at 1.8 g/t average gold grade to a standalone CIL plant over a six year mine life. The average production rate was 53 000 oz/y, assuming a 90% metallurgical recovery.
At a gold price of A$1 400/oz, the 2009 PFS estimated an aftertax net present value of A$66-million and net operating revenue of A$436-million with an internal rate of return of 44%.