PERTH (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed Laneway Resources has started processing the first ore from the current mining campaign at its Agate Creek gold mine, in Queensland, at the Lorena gold mine carbon-in-leach plant.

First blast took place in October last year, and there is currently some 4 400 t of ore, grading 6 g/t gold available to be processed over the next ten days.

Laneway on Monday told shareholders that mining operations at Agate Creek had been temporarily suspended owing to localized flooding and resultant road closures, caused by ex-Tropical Cyclone Imogen, with further rainfall predicted from Cyclone Kimi, which will make landfall on Monday.

The company said that access restrictions owing to current flooding and road closures would likely see mining remain suspended until the end of the wet season.

“While the recent heavy rainfall and flooding has temporarily suspended mining activities, the delays shouldn’t impact materially on the expected outcomes from the current mining campaign and the plans the company has for a busy 2021 as we focus in parallel on the planning, approvals and development of the larger volume of high grade ore encompassed by the larger Whittle pit shell, undertake drilling programmes targeting over 60 regional exploration targets, and then turn our attention to options for on-site processing of the almost half-a-million ounces of gold resource already identified at Agate Creek,” said Laneway chairperson Stephen Bizzell.

The long-term aim for the project is for conventional on-site processing of the larger commercial grade mineral resource of 471 000 oz of gold that has been defined, while additional potential toll treatment of high-grade ore would also continue to be targeted in the shorter term, to provide additional cash flows to fund significant further exploration and development, while minimising the requirement for equity capital raisings.