Blackham Resources’ rapid and remarkable revival of the Wiluna gold field in W.A reached a major milestone this week with the commencement of gold production at their 100%-owned Matilda project.
The news, which catapults Blackham into the select club of Australian gold miners, should see them produce around 100,000 ounces of gold a year a year, although the ambitious company already has much loftier targets in sight.
Milling of ore has now commenced through the refurbished mill at the Wiluna Gold Plant which has a capacity to treat 1.7 million tonnes per annum.
The carbon-in-leach tanks are now operational and commissioning of the gravity circuit, elution circuit and gold room is underway.
The first gold pour is now expected within days.
During the September quarter, mining focused on the removal of overburden to open up ore sources from the Matilda M10 and M3 pits. As expected, ore mined to date is lower grade, but the M10 pit is now approaching the main higher-grade structure.
Underground mining for the quarter centered on lateral development around the Golden Age stopes. The company says there was good news on two fronts at Golden Age, with mining activity producing 20% more development ore than expected and visible gold sighted.
In total, gold stockpiles of 172,000 tonnes at 1.4 g/t for 7,900 ounces of gold is now available for milling, which represents more than a full month of production.
Blackham has already locked in near-record prices for around one third of its forecast production through a hedging program and the company is moving ahead quickly with plans to boost annual production beyond the initial target of 100,000+ ounces.
In August, Blackham easily raised $25 million to fast-track expansion plans which could see the company improve its production guidance to the market any time soon.
The Matilda project includes a total resource of 5.1Moz thanks to some spectacular exploration success and it seems that almost every time Blackham pokes a hole in the ground they come up with gold mineralization.
With 860 square kilometers of tenements to explore and a stellar exploration record of working out where the gold is hiding, it is safe to assume that Blackham’s Matilda Gold resource wont sit at 5.1m ounces for long.
By Matt Birney
