Northern Star executive chairperson Bill Beament
Photo by: Bloomberg
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The Tuckabianna gold project, in Western Australia, has poured its first gold, ASX-listed Westgold Resources reported on Tuesday.
We are pleased to bring the Tuckabianna plant online within time and under our budget expectations. Tuckabianna is our third processing plant now operating in the Murchison region alongside the Bluebird and Fortnum plants,” said Westgold MD Peter Cook.
Westgold acquired the plant in mid-2017, and has spent the past six months permitting and refurbishing the plant to operate at between 1.2-million and 1.4-million tonnes a year.
“Our main operations at Meekatharra have now fully recovered from the severe flooding impacts in the last quarter, and we look forward to continuing our ramp-up of gold output with the addition of the third plant,” Cook said.
Meanwhile, fellow-listed gold miner Northern Star Resources has now completed its acquisition of Westgold’s South Kalgoorlie operations for A$80-million.
The acquisition included the project’s 1.2-million-tonne-a-year processing facility, a Joint Ore Reserves Committee-compliant resource of four-million ounces, and 842 km2 of prospective gold tenure.
The project is currently producing at a rate of 30 000 oz/y to 40 000 oz/y, with the plant also toll treating third-party ores.
Cook previously said that the divestment of the South Kalgoorlie operations formed part of the company’s strategy to focus its efforts on its larger, long-life Murchison gold assets.
“The South Kalgoorlie acquisition will deliver immediate benefits thanks to the additional milling capacity, which will enable us to take full advantage of the strong mining and development rates we are generating at our existing Kalgoorlie operations,” said Northern Star executive chairperson Bill Beament.
“It also delivers longer-term growth potential with what is already a substantial resource with significant scope to refine and upgrade.”
Beament said that Northern Star was planning to undertake a full ground-up review of the exploration upside at South Kalgoorlie, to ensure that the company fully understood the geology and extent of the potential for growth.