Struggling gold miner Apex Minerals has put its Youanmi gold project near Sandstone up for sale as it looks to free up cash and focus on optimising its Wiluna mine.
Struggling gold miner Apex Minerals has put its Youanmi gold project near Sandstone up for sale as it looks to focus on optimising its Wiluna mine.
The project, which includes total resources of almost one million ounces and a 600,000 tonnes per annum processing plant, was advertised for sale on the MinesOnline.com website.
The divestment decision comes five months after Apex offloaded another of its gold assets, the Aphrodite gold project near Kalgoorlie, to unlisted Aphrodite Gold for $7.2 million.
The planned sale of Youanmi represents a further shift from Apex's original strategy implemented in May 2007, when it acquired Youanmi for $10 million along with Aphrodite for $7 million and the Gidgee project for $11 million.
The three projects were acquired as part of a plan to tie together large high grade, but refractory, gold resources in the eastern Goldfields. The lynchpin of the plan was the subsequent purchase of the Wiluna mine for $29.5 million the following month, giving Apex control of WA's largest refractory gold plant and a major gold resource from which it hoped to produce over 100,000 ounces of gold a year
While initial production was expected solely to come from Wiluna, the company ultimately aimed to increase production by sourcing additional high grade ore from the Wilson's deposit at Gidgee and later from Youanmi.
However, the company has been hit by operational problems at Wiluna which resulted in significant production shortfalls and forced it to raise additional capital last year, including a $109 million rights issue in November. Apex posted a loss of $76.4 million in the December half on production of over 40,000 ounces.
But Apex has reported promising exploration results from Wiluna mine and improved operating results in recent weeks, including the start of mining at the high-grade Golden Age deposit. Last month, it said underground development rates had improved significantly, and that its developed stocks inventory had risen 35 per cent by the end of February.
Apex's primary focus is now on optimising production from various deposits at the Wiluna operation. While it still plans to source additional ore from Wilsons, in January it warned that delays in securing road haulage permits meant that was unlikely to commence until June this year.
Comment is being sought from Apex.
