Horizon Minerals’ toll milling of stockpiled low-grade ore from its Boorara open pit mine in the historic WA Goldfields has yielded profitable results, with the company banking $770,000 from the initial campaign. It said its second campaign was underway and due to be completed in January.
Horizon Minerals Managing Director, Jon Price said the campaign to process the low-grade stockpiles followed earlier operations treating higher grades over the last 12 months which he said had generated around $4 million.
Earlier toll milling operations were conducted on an “at cost” basis, whereas this latest round of processing was under a profit-sharing arrangement.
“Going forward, the toll milling allows us to be self-funded,” Price said.
Price said the new profit-sharing arrangements with the owners of the Lakewood toll milling facility in Kalgoorlie are more profitable than the previous ‘at cost’ arrangement.
“While the grades were from our lower grade stockpile, they were still 8 per cent higher than expected, which bodes well for future development. It provides further valuable geological information on grade allocation processes.”
Horizon said the first campaign comprised 69,700 tonnes milled at a reconciled grade of 0.92 grams per tonne gold for 1,857 ounces at a calculated recovery of 90 per cent.
Horizon Minerals’ toll milling of stockpiled low-grade ore from its Boorara open pit mine in the historic WA Goldfields has yielded profitable results, with the company banking $770,000 from the initial campaign of 69,700 tonnes milled at a reconciled grade of 0.92 grams per tonne gold for 1,857 ounces. It said its second campaign was underway and due to be completed in January.
Due to the close location of its projects to infrastructure in Kalgoorlie, the company said it had been able to continue utilising toll milling to generate cash and gain further geological and metallurgical information on the Boorara orebody.
Earlier this month Horizon posted a slew of eye-popping high-grade gold assays, after completing 31 holes of a 42 drill hole RC program to the north of the historic Golden Ridge mine and 4 kilometres south of its Boorara project.
Significant drill intersections include a 4 metre section grading a stellar 46.7 g/t gold from 80m downhole.
Other significant drill results include 5m at 8.83 g/t gold from 57m downhole, 1m grading 21.36 g/t gold from 86m and 12m going 2.75 g/t gold from 32m downhole.
Horizon currently has four drill rigs spinning the rods in the Kalgoorlie region at its Yarmany, Black Flag, Kestrel and Golden Ridge South targets with multiple commodities being tested including gold, nickel, silver, zinc and lithium across the portfolio.
Results are also expected in the New Year from diamond drilling and RC holes punched into the Specimen Well, Omega, and PSI prospects.
On the corporate front, Horizon also mopped up the 50 per cent balance of the high-grade Penny’s Find gold project it didn’t already own from Labyrinth Resources.
Under the terms of the deal, Horizon will stump up $500,000 cash, $250,000 worth of Horizon shares and a series of smaller payments including net smelter royalties pending Horizon bringing the east Kalgoorlie project into production.
The Penny’s Find deposit contains 250,000 tonnes grading an impressive 5.22 g/t gold for 42,000 ounces of gold with plenty of upside due to a low grade 1.5 g/t gold cut-off.
Free cash flow, which is anticipated in the new year, multiple drilling campaigns and some canny corporate moves all bode well for growing the Horizon Minerals story in coming months.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Matt Birney
