First ore should be pushed through Calidus Resources’ Warrawoona Gold plant in the Pilbara by month’s end, with the company tipping its maiden gold pour to follow in mid-May.
It said the semi-autogenous grinding, or “SAG” mill is now ready for ore commissioning by EPC contractor GR Engineering Services. Milling is expected late this month and mining contractor Macmahon Holdings is ramping up activities with the main mining fleet now in operation.
Calidus said it expected to go to 24-hour operations later this week as it prepares for a constant ore flow to the plant.
The company’s fleet of eight 100-tonne trucks is onsite and operational, along with the project’s main excavators that have already stacked up 140,000t of ore on the ROM pad, targeting 200,000t once operational.
Calidus Resources Managing Director, David Reeves said: “Commissioning of the plant by EPC contractor GR Engineering Services Ltd is now well advanced with the SAG Mill, the single largest and most complex piece of equipment ready to go.”
“We are confident of meeting our April milling timetable which will lead to first gold 2 weeks thereafter.”
The company said its operational workforce was already onsite to assist with commissioning and all operational procedures, audits, inspections and maintenance management systems have been implemented.
The project has a proven and probable ore reserve of 13.6 million tonnes at 1.2 grams per tonne for 519,000 ounces of gold.
Calidus completed its feasibility study in September 2020 outlining a high-margin gold operation with average gold production of 90,000 ounces per annum at $1,290 per ounce all-in sustaining cost from an initial eight-year mine life.
The study was based on using a two million tonne per annum conventional carbon-in-leach processing circuit with single stage crush and SAG mill.
Warrawoona had a pre‐production capital cost of $120 million including contingency and pre‐production mining costs with Calidus forecasting an after tax cashflow of $447 million, an internal rate of return of 69 per cent and payback after 13 months.
It added there was excellent potential for resource growth through infill and extensional drilling as there were mineralised outcrops at surface across all deposits which remain open along strike and down dip.
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By Matt Birney
