Melbourne-based St Barbara Mining plans to build a new open-mine pit at its Leonora gold mine in Western Australia.
The company has registered encouraging intercepts at the Trevor Bore deposit, which is where the mine would be located. St Barbara plans to initiate development in 2023, with an aim to make the mine operational in 2024.
The Trevor Bore, 25 kilometers away from the Gwalia plant, would feed this mill for the first year of operations.
To extend the mine life of Leonora, St Barbara will begin sample drilling and infill this quarter at Tower Hill and Harbour Lights for mine design purposes. St Barbara anticipates a prefeasibility study to be completed in the June 2022 quarter.
Gold production increased 15% from last quarter, producing 15,757 ounces this quarter.
Leonora's annual production guidance for FY2022 is between 180,000 and 200,000 ounces of gold.
Operationally, continuous use of remote trucking has led to a 9% improvement in average daily haulage, from 2.2 thousand tonnes per day to 2.4 kt per day.
St Barbara operates two other mines: the Simberi gold mine in Papua New Guinea, which is currently not producing ore due to a plant shutdown, and the Touquoy gold mine in Nova Scotia, Canada.
