Classic rolls up sleeves to build gold plant over Xmas

There will be no tools down at Classic Minerals this Christmas as the WA gold explorer races finish its Kat Gap processing plant south of Southern Cross with work on the 70,000-tonne tailings facility and bulk earthworks ongoing.

The project is about 25 per cent complete having broken ground in October and Classic now has approval to install an inline cyanide reactor.

Classic is eyeing an early 2023 practical completion date with first production tests to follow soon after.

The company on Monday locked in a three-year, $15m equity line from LDA capital to underscore mining at the 93,000-ounce Kat Cap gold deposit in addition to a $5m con-note to fund options for Kat Gap and its greater Forrestania project area.

Kat Gap boasts a 2.96 g/t gold grade and Classic’s processing plant is expected to recover about 96 per cent of the metal from ore.

Two nearby deposits held by Classic are the target of expansion as the company seeks to grow its 59,700-ounce Lady Ada and 250,000-ounce Lady Magdalene deposits in the Forrestania gold belt.

The projects sit about 170km south of the historic goldmining outpost of Southern Cross and were first discovered in the 1990s and probed by the now-defunct Sons of Gwalia in 2003.

Sons of Gwalia penned a 56,000-ounce resource at Kat Gap but a depressed gold price and high trucking costs put paid to the site’s development.

Classic’s work on site has returned impressive intercepts including a 2m strike going 116 g/t gold and a 4m run at 76 g/t gold which included a bonanza 1m section going 304 g/t.

Those early and follow up results rewarded Classic’s persistence and with today’s gold price about US$1700-ounce, a new pit design and with plenty of ground left to scratch around – both at the surface and below – the company is confident it is onto a winner.

Classic is now in the fast-lane to production and has its eyes on the deposit’s fringes where evidence of more gold has been sighted.

With the area largely unexplored by the drill bit, the full scale of what lays beneath the surface remains to be seen.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au