Larvotto Resources has bought a homestead and wedding venue near its Hillgrove antimony-gold project in New South Wales to comfortably house a growing permanent workforce. The company aims to start production at the historic mine in early 2026.
Larvotto will pay $3 million in cash plus $600,000 in shares for the rural Echidna Gully accommodation and function centre, which is on the outskirts of the Hillgrove township in NSW’s northern Tablelands.
The 771,109-share consideration is based on a price of $0.7781 per share on a 10-day volume-weighted average price which will be determined before the transaction is completed.
The acquisition solves a pressing problem for Larvotto as it expands the project’s exploration and mining workforce, in the face of a serious rental housing shortfall across regional Australia. The new accommodation is only a few minutes’ drive from the mine development and will serve as a central hub for camp operations and workforce support.
The function centre will also allow Larvotto to offer housing for short-term staff who are bringing the processing plant and priority-related infrastructure up to spec, before a planned re-start of production next year.
Hillgrove township is about 25km southeast of the region’s main city, Armidale, and is centred about 1km north-east of and a few minutes’ drive from the Hillgrove mine. The company still plans to house most of its permanent workforce in Armadale. Echidna Gully is 2.8km northeast of Hillgrove’s town centre.
Larvotto says Echidna Gully’s proximity to the Hillgrove mine will save the workforce a significant amount of time and effort and lead to a related saving of millions of dollars in company costs.
It will also eliminate the need for Larvotto to construct a dedicated camp and related infrastructure, which is consistent with the company’s desire to undertake minimal refurbishment and upgrade work before restarting operations at the mine.
It is also in line with the company’s intent to develop accessible revenue streams within six months of beginning work on-site or within 12-14 months for the full expansion scope of work.
Larvotto Resources managing director Ron Heeks said: "The purchase of Echidna Gully is an important step in our strategy to support the growing workforce at the Hillgrove antimony-gold project… Echidna Gully provides an excellent facility that allows us to offer a comfortable and convenient base for our employees, contract drill crews and plant modification teams, reflecting our commitment to bringing the Hillgrove mine back into production as we work to deliver Australia’s largest antimony resource to the global market.”
Larvotto is in a critical phase of the project’s evolution as it moves forward, including ongoing exploration at the historic Hillgrove site, through to the earliest possible development of start-up mine reserves, mine design, early mining and stockpiling, metallurgical tweaks, plant upgrades and dry tailings storage design and establishment.
The mine looks set to produce about 7 per cent of the global antimony supply, leading to significant employment opportunities for the region.
Larvotto is bringing the project online in a rising antimony market, which is being driven by the increasing use of antimony in solar panel production while production from other global players becomes stressed. This demand-supply trend is expected to continue.
Growing global demand for the critical mineral is also running head-on into China’s recent export restrictions on antimony.
For the first time in Hillgrove’s history, gold and antimony will be targeted with equal priority. The most recent operations at the site were 30-years-ago and focussed on antimony. In the century prior, it was a productive high-grade gold mine.
The co-existence of gold and antimony within the same mineralised zones considerably enhances the current project’s value and sustains Larvotto’s strategy to maximise its returns by concurrently processing both metals.
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By Doug Bright
