White Rock Minerals Ltd (ASX:WRM, OTCQX:WRMCF) has closed the books on its first mining campaign, joining a league of high-grade gold producers at its Morning Star Underground Gold Mine in Victoria.
The WRM team minted its first gold bar this week after treating 445 tonnes of ore at a robust 10.7 g/t gold feed grade.
That’s enough to rank the mine as one of Australia’s top five high-grade gold mines.
Golden goose
White Rock’s first mining run generated 113 ounces of gold after the team commissioned new mining extensions at McNally’s Reef.
The gold recoveries came in around 75%, but White Rock is tinkering with its process flowsheet in a bid to get that figure above 90%.
Moving ahead, gold production should continue ramping up over the next two quarters as new reefs come online for mining and gold processing.
Transforming to producer
White Rock managing director and CEO Matt Gill called production “a great milestone” in an investor call-out this morning.
“A lot of work has gone into the re-start of this famous Morning Star Underground Gold Mine,” he said.
“White Rock has conducted more than 7,000 metres of drilling since acquisition in August last year, with the objective of identifying enough gold reefs between surface and 9 Level to justify a mine re-start.
“This drilling has identified an initial five such areas and mining recommenced in quarter two of this year."
Now, with the first gold bar in hand, Gill said it was pleasing to see the hard work bear fruit in such a short space of time.
“Morning Star’s existing infrastructure and a functional gold processing plant have provided White Rock a rapid pathway to gold production,” he explained.
“This has allowed the company to leapfrog many of the issues associated with the transition from explorer to producer."
All down to the team
Looking back on that transformation, Gill said much of the credit went to the team on site.
“They have been able to re-commence mining, recruit a well-knit team and continue to do so as we ramp up our efforts to increase mine production as more of these new reefs are accessed,” he said.
“The team has also been able to re-commission the gold processing plant on schedule, safely.
“This important milestone is a credit to all those involved as we continue to develop and open up more working areas underground, improve our mining and gold processing efficiencies and ramp up our gold production over the next two quarters.”
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