In a Red Letter Day, Meeka Metals yesterday poured the first gold from the company’s Murchison gold project on schedule and within 12 months of breaking ground at the new venture.
With plant commissioning completed at the project, management reports that gold production is ramping up smoothly. It plans to process about 80,000 ounces of gold per year.
Of course, once unleashed, the beast needs feeding, so the company is amassing ore stockpiles ahead of the plant. Open pit mining is also picking up its pace, with the June arrival of the company’s third dig fleet.
For keen Meeka watchers, the pace and volume of development work, refurbishments, replacements, acquisitions and the seemingly infinite consideration of details - ranging from the smallest to all but insurmountable - have been calmly vanquished in an orderly way that does the company credit.
Additionally, Meeka has done exceptionally well with its public information flow, which has included a host of play-by-play progress accounts, accompanied by dozens of before-and-after photos of its plant-site, access, open pit and underground development activities.
Meeka Metals managing director Tim Davidson said: “It is an impressive achievement by the team to deliver first gold on time and within 12 months of breaking ground at the Murchison. We are now focussed on ramping up gold production toward our targeted 80,000 ounce per annum with the arrival of the third dig fleet and expanded open pit mining plan underway, and first ore from underground at Andy Well in the September 2025 quarter.”
Meeka’s flagship Murchison gold project, 50 kilometres north of Meekatharra in Western Australia’s Murchison Goldfield, hosts a large high-grade 1.2 million ounces estimated mineral resource averaging 3 grams per tonne (g/t) gold on its granted mining leases.
The company delivered a definitive feasibility study in December last year, which focussed on restarting the company’s fully permitted Andy Well mill.
It outlines a 10-year production plan for up to 76,000 ounces of gold per year at an average rate of 65,000 ounces annually for the first seven years, an undiscounted pre-tax free cash flow of $1 billion, a net present value of $616 million and a 180 per cent internal rate of return.
The company continues to focus on resource growth, particularly on near-mine targets identified through geophysics and by drilling in areas that have historically been only thinly tested.
Meeka’s key target areas include shallow, high-grade gold mineralisation at the company’s 40,000-ounce St Anne’s gold deposit, extensions to the 690,000-ounce Turnberry deposit and other compelling targets along the 7km-long Fairway shear zone.
With its first gold pour from initial gravity gold yesterday, site activity ramping up with open pit mining underway, a third dig fleet champing at the bit and its planned underground mining slated to begin in the September quarter, Meeka looks like it is off to the races with a hearty “you beauty!” from the assembled crowd.
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By Doug Bright
