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DIGGERS & DEALERS PREVIEW REFINING THE GOLD STANDARD abcrefinery.com

Apollo adjusts to split personality

by Dominic Piper

etallurgical drilling, resource definition drilling and pure
Mexploration drilling – Apollo Consolidated Ltd chief Nick
Castleden has a lot on his plate but one thing he doesn’t need
to worry about presently is capital markets.
Like its peers, Apollo has seen its share price drift in the last
three months as spot gold softened but a cash balance of more
than $35 million means Castleden has no need to fret about
short-term dynamics.
“The market in general has seen a divergence between the
producers and wannabe producers but we are insulated
because of our cash position. We don’t have to look over our
shoulder after every programme we do,” Castleden told GMJ.
“We have this combination of pure exploration, resource
definition and metallurgy and the cash position means we don’t
have to pick and choose between them. We have a RC rig
providing the exploration news flow and the diamond rig doing
the metallurgical holes for the PFS.”
Both rigs are attacking Apollo’s Lake Rebecca gold project,
150km east of Kalgoorlie. A greenfields discovery in a mature
district, Lake Rebecca has quickly grown to 1 moz gold and four
years after latching onto it, Apollo is in the midst of a PFS for
the project despite the exploration opportunity being far from
exhausted.
“A lot of the work we are doing is still on the exploration side
but we actually have enough ounces to push the technical
components of the PFS forward as well,” Castleden said.
No date has been set for the study’s release with Castleden
conscious of the current squeeze in technical consultants in a
Apollo has a 25,000m RC/diamond drilling programme under
vibrant development sector.
way, with rigs undertaking a mix of resource definition,
“We have been kicking along nicely but haven’t promised a metallurgical and exploration work
date yet until we know each component,” he said. “The way the
industry is at the moment, it is a struggle to get things done. us a good handle on where it is, and we know we can rely on
We don’t want to be that company which keeps pushing things the block models. But still have 1 moz falling even within those
back.” conservative parameters and the engineers are still saying ‘this
The considered approach is in keeping with Apollo’s strategy for should be dug up’.”
Lake Rebecca’s development. The engineering work – the PFS is being led by GR Engineering
Junior gold developers have taken a reputational knock in Services Ltd – is also informed by recent travails in the sector.
recent years after several high-profile failures but Castleden “There is a lot of pressure on start-up operations if they don’t
is determined Apollo will learn the lessons of others and avoid deliver gold in the first six months and they end up chasing their
familiar pitfalls. tail forever,” Castleden said. “A lot of our recent work has been
“We occasionally get criticised for taking a more conservative around firming up and fleshing out near-surface positions. We
route but looking in the rear-view mirror we think it is the sensible have had success near-surface with better grades some of
one,” he said. “Like a lot of the recent failures, we’re in that 1-1.5 which is not in the resource model. That could go a long way to
g/t zone so we have to get it right. Some of those previous reducing the payback timeline.”
developments went wrong because they didn’t fully understand Metallurgical recoveries always loom as a major obstacle but
where the gold was. So, it is about being steady and systematic. with mineralisation non-refractory, Castleden is relaxed about
“We are drilling on 25m by 40m which is high density and gives test work.

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