Horizon Minerals mining at the Crown Jewel pit at Boorara. Image: Horizon Minerals.
Horizon Minerals has completed its final milling campaign from trial mining at the Boorara gold mine in Western Australia, with an updated mineral resource estimate to be released this year.
The company undertook the fourth and final milling campaign at the Lakewood processing facility, located seven kilometres west of the Boorara gold mine.
It involved ore treatment at Boorara’s Regal East trial pit, where 14,962 dry tonnes were processed with a mill reconciled grade of 1.6 grams per tonne of gold.
Horizon poured first gold from the final milling campaign on January 28.
The company stated the aim of the trial mining and toll mining was to determine whether there was “grade uplift potential” from Boorara’s current global resource model.
“The Boorara trial mining and toll milling exercise has provided a greatly improved geological understanding of this complex mineralised system and confirmed the presence of multiple flat lying cross cutting structures that will now be incorporated into an updated resource model,” Horizon managing director Jon price said.
Milling performance averaged 87 tonnes per hour during the trial, which the company described as “excellent”.
“…Testing the ore through a mill gives us real time metallurgical recoveries, reagent consumptions and optimal plant design parameters and costs as we advance the consolidated feasibility study,” Price said.
Horizon produced 1182 fine ounces from the milling campaign, which were sold at $2356 per ounce to generate $2.8 million in revenue.
The company’s full geological and economic summary is slated for release later this quarter, with a mineral resource estimate scheduled for early in the June quarter.
Horizon plans to complete its consolidated feasibility study in the September quarter.