Wiluna Mining continues full steam ahead in the expansion of the giant Wiluna gold mine in Western Australia. The world-class gold deposit has produced outstanding results from underground development drilling with diamond core returning 5.96m at 112.98 g/t gold including 0.65m at an incredible 880 g/t gold from the Golden Age lode.
The stream of high-grade intercepts from the sulphide development drilling program at Wiluna has provided the company with the confidence to push ahead with its expansion plans at the operation. Management is aiming to more than double its current gold output over the next few years to a lucrative 250,000 ounces of gold per annum. The increase in output is expected to come from the addition of a second production stream to the operation with the expanded plant set to produce free gold and an innovative gold-in-concentrate product.
Wiluna’s ongoing drilling campaign is designed to expand the company’s high-grade resource inventory to provide feed to its burgeoning milling operation. The company has already completed more than 18,000 metres of the development program, and with six rigs currently on site drilling up a storm it managed to report the results from a further 68 drill holes today.
Latest results come from across the mine environs and including 12m at 12.08 g/t gold from Bulletin, 9.45m at 8.70 g/t gold from Calvert and 4.35m at 17.67 g/t gold from East Lode.
Wiluna Mining’s Executive Chairman, Milan Jerkovic said:
“Once again we are seeing outstanding results from drilling ‘under the headframe’. The quality of the drilling results means we are confident of delivering our Stage 1 sulphide strategy. The drilling continues to define shallow high‐grade resource development targets. At the Wiluna Mining Centre from our first holes at Bulletin and Essex, Golden Age through to Calvert and the East Lode, this ongoing programme has delivered consistent exceptional high‐grade drilling results which shows that Wiluna remains one of the largest undeveloped gold systems in Australia”.
The Wiluna gold project is located in the North-Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia. The company’s tenement package covers more than 1,600 square kilometres and 75km of strike across the metal-rich Wiluna-Norseman greenstone belt.
The centrepiece of the project is the Wiluna mine itself which has a gold producing history dating back to the early 20th century. Mining operations over the field have resulted in the production of more than 4 million ounces of gold to date.
Wiluna’s current resource inventory adds another 6.4 million ounces to the historic production – a bounty the company is set to grow in the coming months with updated resources due to be tabled before the end of the month.
Wiluna has aimed to upgrade key high-grade resource positions into mineable reserves and to find new free-milling high-grade ore shoots to underpin the dual-stream production strategy in the short to medium term.
Mr Jerkovic said:
“As I have continued to stress over the past six months, Wiluna Mining is a development and growth Company currently focussed on Stage 1 sulphide development commencing by September 2021, while expanding our high‐grade Mineral Resources and making new discoveries. This is the strategy and focus of the Company. It is important that we emphasise our current operation, until the commencement of Stage 1 concentrate production in September 2021, is purely to provide valuable operating cashflow to assist in funding this transition to Stage 1 and producing gold concentrates to achieve our goal to become a Tier 1 gold mine in a Tier 1 jurisdiction”.
Drilling has focused on the free-milling Lennon and Golden Age lodes, which is now complete, and the Calvert, Essex, East Lode and Bulletin resources, where exploration and development drilling continues.
Wiluna’s Stage 1 expansion program is targeting the production of around 750,000 tonnes of underground sulphide ore per annum to feed increased and enhanced milling operation. The expansion will result in production from the operation stepping up from 61,885 ounces last year to between 100,000 and 120,000 ounces per annum in the coming years.
Wiluna has been making huge strides advancing its expansion program with the new management team overseeing a transformational 12-month period engineering a clear path forward and return to profitability. The company posted a $1.5 million profit for the 2020 financial year, reduced its debt position, increased its working capital and is already well advanced with the Stage 1 program.
Its current work program includes ongoing drilling, a refurbishment of the rod mill on the plant, expansion of the mine tailings facilities and development work for both open pit and underground mining.
With more than $11 million cash in the bank, a squadron of drill rigs on site and construction underway on the Stage 1 expansion, Wiluna Mining has thus far been faithful to its promises, and with a new set of resources to be delivered in the coming weeks investors will be hoping for more good tidings.
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