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OPERATIONAL REVIEW
DIGGeRs & DeALeRs PReVIeW MACA.NET.AU

Ausgold readies

for transition

easoned explorer Ausgold Ltd is on the stepping stones towards that,” he said. Ausgold has lifted the resource at
Scusp of officially joining the queue of “The focus was to get a material amount Katanning to 2.16 moz, adding almost 1 moz
gold developers. of resource inventory ready for a study and to the inventory over the past 12 months
As this edition went to print, a PFS on get that feasibility study work under way,
the company’s Katanning gold project was which is what we’ve done. We’ve worked ment phase.”
set to confirm robust economics for a plus- side-by-side with the exploration drilling, The only hiccup in an otherwise stellar
100,000 ozpa multi-year operation just we’ve done a lot of metallurgy, geotech and past 12 months for Ausgold was a dispute
275km south-east of Perth. open-pit engineering work, which is all re- among directors which briefly spilled out
It comes after the company unveiled a ally important just to show your project has into the public arena. Greentree insisted all
56mt @ 1.21 g/t gold for 2.16 moz resource, the economics that warrant development. differences had been resolved and every-
including 82.5% of ounces in the measured “You can spend a lot of money in explora- one was now aligned on plans to develop
and indicated categories, in late May. tion and not get anywhere, so we didn’t want the Katanning project.
The anticipated positive outcomes for the to fall into that trap. We were looking for a “I’d prefer not to have had that happen,
proposed standalone open-pit operation at critical mass and we’ve definitely moved but we navigated it and we continue to get
Katanning will position Ausgold alongside beyond that now in terms of the scale of the some really good support from our register
De Grey Mining Ltd in a class of emerg- project, which means we can target a plus- which is pleasing,” he said.
ing developers behind the likes of Bellevue 100,000 ozpa production profile.” Katanning remains one of the few ad-
Gold Ltd which are already constructing As is typically the case for most com- vanced projects in the South-West Yilgarn,
new gold mines in Western Australia. panies as they advance projects further with the plus 30 moz Boddington gold
Ausgold managing director Matthew down the development cycle, Ausgold has mine still leading the way from a produc-
Greentree is confident the company can already begun to see some key changes in tion perspective. However, the discovery of
make the long-awaited transition. the evolution of its share register. nickel-copper-PGE occurrences at Julimar
“It’s been a while coming, but we’ve put Jupiter Asset Management – one of the by Chalice Mining Ltd has prompted more
a lot of work in at the front end with under- world’s largest gold funds – participated in eyes to be cast on the region.
standing the geology and getting that right the recent capital raising, joining the likes Ausgold controls 5,500sq km of tenure in
because it’s always the highest risk part of of Dundee Goodman Merchant Partners the region, including the Woodanilling pro-
any resource project,” Greentree told Pay- which have been pouring money into the ject directly to the west of Katanning.
dirt. company for the past three years. “There’s a lot more people starting to look
“Our ambition is to mine this project. We “What we’re seeing now is our register at where we are more seriously because of
just raised $16.6 million to fund that transi- starting to shift from a retail base to a more Julimar, whereas in the past this area has
tion as a developer.” institutional base as people start to recog- been written off a bit because it’s farming
Ausgold has now added 957,000oz to nise the fundamentals of this project are land and people have said ‘there can’t pos-
the resource at Katanning over the past 12 stacking up,” Greentree said. sibly be a gold mine out there’,” Greentree
months for a remarkable discovery cost of “We’ve been fairly consistent with our said.
just $11/oz. Recent drilling at a number of messaging, we want our shareholders to “Like those in the Fraser Range or Yamar-
regional targets such as Duggan, Tamacur- know exactly what we’re going to deliver na belt before us, it’s one of those ones that
ring and Dataline indicated potential for fur- and I think everything we’ve said was go- conceptually has always been there, but no
ther ounces beyond the current estimate. ing to happen has happened. We’ve prided one’s really been brave enough to step out.
Building up a critical mass for develop- ourselves on that and really tried to show We’ve been pushing ahead on it because
ment was the key mandate for Greentree that this is a very real project. we always knew there was more to this
when he arrived at the company five years “There’s been some ups and downs area. We’ve started to have some success
ago, but as far as he is concerned, the job over the years in terms of the history of the with the regional exploration beyond our re-
is nowhere near complete. company and the project before I joined, source areas so we think there will be a lot
“I’ve always been really ambitious for this but I’d like to think we’ve delivered on eve- more to come in over the next few years.”
project because I see potential for up to 5 rything we said we were going to and that
moz here, so we’re focusing on some easy will continue as we move into the develop- – Michael Washbourne

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