PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Gold miner Millennium Minerals will implement a new mining strategy at its Nullagine project, in Western Australia, in the September quarter, aimed at increasing production to 100 000 oz/y by the end of the year.
The new mining strategy will focus on larger, higher-grade ore sources. The high-grade ore will be sourced from the Golden Eagle, Au81 West, Redbeard and Bartons underground deposits, which will collectively uplift gold production at Nullagine.
“This is an exceptional result, with a huge amount of work completed over the course of the June quarter to position the company to achieve our targeted 100 000 oz/y production rate by year-end,” said Millennium CEO Peter Cash.
“The June quarter saw a significant investment in the future growth and success of the business, with a major pre-strip advanced at Golden Eagle to expose this long-term, high-grade ore source, work under way on a fully-funded plant expansion strategy to unlock our sulphide resource, and significant progress with the development of a new underground mine at Bartons.”
Cash said that as expected, the pre-stripping required to access higher grade ore at Golden Eagle has resulted in slightly lower production and higher costs in the June quarter, however, he noted that with this development work now largely complete, Millennium was set to reap the rewards over the coming months with higher-grade ore coming into the mining schedule from September.
Golden Eagle is Millennium’s largest deposit at Nullagine and hosts a mineral resource inventory of some 320 000 oz.
The recently-discovered Redbeard oxide deposit is the highest-grade openpit oxide deposit at Nullagine, with a reserve estimate of 153 000 t, grading 3.5 g/t gold for 17 200 oz of contained gold.
“The scheduled start of mining at the high-grade Redbeard deposit in August will also mark a significant milestone for the company, given that we only drilled our first hole in this area eight months ago,” Cash said.
“Redbeard now represents our highest-grade deposit at Nullagine, with recent strong exploration results in the surrounding area pointing to the arrival of Twenty Mile Sandy as Millennium’s sixth key mining center.”
Cash said that the combination of rising grades and increased production in the September and December quarters, which will be followed early next year by the start of production from Millennium’s first underground mine and the commissioning of the sulphide plant expansion, meant that the company was now well placed to realise its long-held objective of becoming a significant midtier Australian gold producer.
During the third quarter of this year, Millennium is expecting to produce between 20 000 oz and 22 000 oz of gold, which will increase to 25 000 oz in the fourth quarter.