WA gold mine nears operation for Classic

Construction of Classic Minerals’ gold mine at Kat Gap in WA is moving closer to becoming a reality with the tailing storage facility, or “TSF” 45 per cent complete and the Turkey’s Nest pipeline edging towards completion. The company will shortly commence raising the walls of the TSF. The liners for the TSF have arrived on site and will be installed in early March.

Kat Gap boasts a 2.96 g/t gold head grade and Classic’s Gecko gravity processing plant is expected to recover over 73 per cent of the metal from ore.

The Turkey’s Nest pipeline is a water storage facility on the highest point and the pipeline runs from there to the processing plant.

The Gekko Inline Pressure Jig and Gekko Spinner delivers more than 95 per cent of the liberated gold through a simple gravity process at a crush size of less than 2mm. The plant has a capacity of 100 tonnes per hour. The recoverable gold through the Gekko gravity circuit will be approximately 73 per cent of the ore head grade. The remaining gold will report to the tailings for reprocessing via a standard carbon-in-leach plant at some future point in the project development.

The company believes Kat Gap has been shown to have ore capable of high levels of gravity extractable gold at low processing and establishment cost. 

In December 2022 Classic Minerals announced a $20.1 million funding facility for the construction of the Kat Gap gold mine. The funding included a $15 million share put option facility and a $5.1 million convertible note issue through USA based LDA Capital. The funding followed final approval from the WA government in November 2022.

Kat Gap is some 170km south of Southern Cross and approximately 50km south of Forrestania. It hosts almost 93,000 ounces of gold in an inferred mineral resource of 975,722 tonnes and is the highest-grade contributor to the company’s total gold inventory of 403,906 ounces. Kat Gap is a shallow unmined gold deposit that was first uncovered in the 1990s and had a resource estimate and scoping study completed at the site by Sons of Gwalia.

Classic have the 59,700-ounce Lady Ada and 250,000-ounce Lady Magdalene deposits as targets for expansion as the company seeks to grow its Forrestania gold belt gold production. The use of a gravity only circuit to produce gold at Kat Gap may be a clever method of reducing early capital costs and funding future expansion. Other production hopefuls in the region may be some of the crowd watching the operation’s development closely.

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