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DIGGeRs & DeALeRs ReVIeW
ASX: MLG

Capricorn bolsters gold portfolio

ess than a month after pouring first a series of shallow laterite pits and a num- programme just to validate the historical re-
Lgold from it Karlawinda mine in the Pil- ber of other open pits, the deepest of which source and infill gaps in the database.”
bara, Capricorn Metals Ltd has pounced only goes down to 100m. The circa $40 million purchase of Mt Gib-
on another advanced project which effec- Mining ceased when the gold price was son added a stunning $150 million to Capri-
tively has been off the investment radar just $450/oz and the last resource cal- corn’s market cap on the day the acquisition
for the best part of three decades. culated for the project was in 2006 at a was announced to the ASX and comes as
As delegates made their way to Kalgoor- slightly higher $650/oz. Capricorn mod- the company charges towards commercial
lie for what was the 30th edition of Diggers elled the current JORC-compliant resource production at Karlawinda.
& Dealers, Capricorn was finalising its ac- of 79.7mt @ 0.8 g/t for 2.083 moz on a The first week of production at Karlawin-
quisition of the forgotten Mt Gibson gold $2,000/oz gold price. da churned out 2,360oz at gold recoveries
project in Western Australia’s Murchison “We’ve assumed a Super Pit approach of 95%. Capricorn is targeting steady-state
region. to mining it,” Massey said. “We put a large production of 110,000-125,000 ozpa over
Mt Gibson, about 280km north-east of open pit around all the historic pits, joining an initial 10 years of mining at WA’s newest
Perth, has been subject to a forfeiture ap- them together and driving it deeper. We gold operation.
plication appeals process for the last four plan on doing a further 30,000m drilling “We’re now consistently getting gold off
years. Capricorn chief executive Kim Mas- site on a weekly basis and delivering into
sey said there was no denying the 2.1 moz a spot price at the moment,” Massey said.
project represented “fantastic value” for “As you can expect, we’ve had shut-
the company given the upfront acquisition downs to optimise and rectify issues, just
cost equated to less than $20 per resource the usual sort of things you get at start-up.
ounce. We’ve got to keep reminding ourselves we
“This project has pretty much been off the are just a month into this. Pleasingly, how-
grid for the last 30 years,” he said. “The pre- ever, we’ve been able to achieve the laterite
vious owner was very much more focused component of our throughput guidance at 4
on the magnetite iron ore project that sits mtpa on a periodic basis when we haven’t
contiguous to the north of the gold tenure.” had those shutdowns.”
Mt Gibson produced just shy of
870,000oz between 1986 and 1999 from Kym Massey – Michael Washbourne

Driving Davyhurst

ra Banda Mining Ltd managing director material from the Missouri open pit.
OPeter Nicholson makes no secret of the “We have now got sufficient primary blend
fact the Davyhurst plant he recently inherited into the feed and those issues have disap-
has a “long and chequered past” and turning peared,” Nicholson said. “We are very confi-
around its fortunes will be no easy task. dent with the blend going forward that those
However, the mining engineer – who joined [issues] won’t be coming back to haunt us.
the company in April, two months after first “We’ve also replaced the screen panels
gold was poured from the latest iteration of with softer panels that have more self-clean-
the 1.2 mtpa processing facility – is deter- ing properties and it seems to be making a Peter Nicholson
mined not to let his reign be another failed difference, but it’s too early to say. We have We certainly have no issue keeping the mill
restart attempt. ordered more very soft panels.” full, it’s all about the grade [going] into that…
“We’re very happy to be bringing it back into The Golden Eagle underground also we are focusing on dilution control rather than
production and we think there’s a long future wasn’t performing in line with expectations ini- just trying to shift bcm.”
ahead of us,” Nicholson said in his opening tially and exacerbated those blending issues, Nicholson was also upbeat about the po-
remarks to Diggers & Dealers. however, Nicholson was pleased to report tential addition of the high-grade Iguana de-
Despite producing just under 15,000oz the contractor had “materially outperformed” posit (2.7mt @ 2 g/t gold for 175,000oz) into
over almost five months to the end of FY2021, targets set for May and June, with July also the Davyhurst production profile in the near
Ora Banda’s commissioning of the Davyhurst tracking against the DFS forecasts. future, despite a legal battle continuing over
plant could be described as anything but “We are mining faster than we are process- its ownership.
smooth. ing so we now have low, medium and high- “We are not constrained at the back end of
The high clay content from Riverina ore grade stockpiles and are intentionally doing a our plant, just at the front end of our plant, so
caused immediate issues in the materials programme of maximising the grade through if we can get grade into that plant our produc-
handling, first bogging up the screens and the plant,” Nicholson said. tion profile should increase, which will make
then creating viscosity issues in the wet part “The plant is crushing mill-constrained so us more profitable,” he said.
of the plant. This problem has since been the higher grade we can put through that
resolved thanks to blending in higher grade plant, the more gold we’re going to produce. – Michael Washbourne

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