Terrain Minerals have engaged a metallurgical consulting firm to investigate the viability of building an on-site gravity milling operation at their Great Western project near Leonora in order to get into small scale production quickly.
The company has previously flirted with the option of third party toll treating their ore but now believe the project may stand up and provide a more continuous cash flow and lower operational costs by processing the ore themselves on site.
The Great Western project is superbly located just 68km north of the well known mining centre of Leonora and importantly it is only 1km off the main highway between Leonora and Leinster.
The current mineable resource at Great Western shows around 322,500 tonnes of ore with an average grade of 5.14 grams per tonne for a total of 53,000 ounces of gold.
Whilst 53,000 tonnes of gold is relatively modest, the resource is still open down plunge and along strike to the West and given Terrain’s market cap of less than $4m and a share price of just .009c, getting Great Western into production will still represent a very material value creating event for the company.
Great Western has previously been modelled on an open pit initially followed by an underground operation with the grades for the open pit sitting at around 2.7 grams per tonne gold and the underground grade showing 6.75 grams per tonne gold.
The company have based their early stage assumptions on a gravity recovery of around 85% and they expect to put between 25 and 40 tonnes an hour through the mill.
By Matt Birney
