It’s a key step towards the company’s goal of redeveloping Dalgaranga into a long-life and high-grade gold operation.
It produced over 70,000oz of gold in FY2022 prior to being put on care and maintenance, but always struggled with grade and margins.
Spartan Resources’ (ASX:SPR) discovery of high-grade ounces close to existing infrastructure has been instrumental in the project’s turn around. The Never Never deposit hosts a resource estimate of 1.48Moz (5.72Mt at 8.07g/t) which includes an indicated classification of 1.091Moz (3.88Mt at 8.74g/t).
The company later found the adjacent Pepper gold deposit, which hosts a resource estimate (all inferred) of 0.43Moz (1.78Mt at 7.66g/t) and sits less than 1km from the existing 2.5Mtpa Carbon-In-Leach processing plant and infrastructure.
It’s perfect timing to get back in production, with the gold price sitting close to record highs at around US$2718/oz and commentators including the World Gold Council remaining bullish on the precious metal.
The approvals kick in once the company has completed the current Juniper Exploration Drill Drive decline development.
They also include the installation and operation of a ball mill and pre-leach thickener at the existing process plant; and a paste plant utilising recovered tailings as feedstock to provide back-fill support (paste-fill) to underground mining operations.
Essentially this will maximise the quantity of ore available for mining on each underground level – making for a more economic staged development.
“The robust technical work undertaken by our in-house approvals and development team alongside our valued technical consultants has demonstrated low environmental risk associated with the Dalgaranga operation,” SPR interim executive chair Simon Lawson said.
“All key parameters associated with the project are thoroughly understood and well managed, as we progress Dalgaranga to an operational restart based on the still growing high-grade underground Never Never and Pepper gold deposits.
“With these final approvals now in hand, we are excited to move ahead with the next phase of development of the Dalgaranga project and advance systematically towards a production recommencement, in the process creating new jobs and boosting local communities in the Murchison Region of Western Australia.”
