Meeka Metals expects to pour its first gold in the coming weeks, having recently passed key plant pre-commissioning milestones at its expanded Murchison gold project.
Meeka now has an energised and refurbished processing plant, after commissioning its onsite power station. The company has also expanded its accommodation village that will enable its open pit and underground operations to work concurrently.
The company’s new power supply comprises two modular diesel-fired power stations, including a 10 megawatt (MW) facility at its Turnberry prospect and a 2.4MW, two-generator facility at its Andy Well prospect.
With process plant expansion and upgrade works near completion, Meeka has slated full plant commissioning in June. The company’s next red-letter day will be its first gold pour, shortly afterwards.
Since kicking off in April, open pit ore mining continues apace at Meeka’s St Anne’s North and its Turnberry Central stage one pit, where the company is steadily building plant feedstock ahead of imminent process plant commissioning.
Mining at Turnberry marks the second of five high-grade oxide open pits to enter feed production at the Murchison project.
Meeka has been expanding its main accommodation village since April for what will become a multi-mine open pit and underground operation.
The work finished this month and has expanded the village’s capacity to 160 rooms. A new administration complex and underground change house for the incoming underground mining workforce have also been completed.
Meeka Metals managing director Tim Davidson said: “With power to the plant and ore stocks on the ROM, we are on track for commissioning and first gold in the coming weeks. Additionally, with the expansion of the oxide open pits and bringing forward of the underground mines, we made the decision to expand the accommodation village. This expansion has now been completed, bringing capacity to 160 rooms and allowing us to operate the open pits and underground mines concurrently, getting more high-grade ore to the mill sooner.”
In further work, underground services are nearly finished at Andy Well with the installation of power, stage one primary ventilation and water handling equipment.
Dewatering infrastructure at Andy Well includes pumps, electrics and plumbing to deal with water accumulation during mining.
Meeka figures it will be able to kick off ore drive development around mid-year.
In a busy May schedule, Meeka says it has mostly completed staff and operations personnel recruitment, including processing and maintenance staff.
The company will continue to recruit its underground mining team under its owner-operator model through June.
Now that the lights are on and first ore is piling up on the ROM pad ahead of plant commissioning, Meeka is close to spinning up the crushing circuit, conveyors, ball mill, myriad pumps, agitators, screens, electrowinning and other componentry that make the whole enterprise work.
The gold room will be the stage for the grand finale, bringing together every atom of gold recovered by the project’s entire orchestra. That exciting, coordinated performance always deserves celebrating.
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By Doug Bright
