Apex Begins Wiluna Plant Commissioning
Apex begins Wiluna plant commissioning
APEX Minerals says it has begun commissioning of the plant and ramped up gold ore reserves at its flagship Wiluna gold project in Western Australia, extending the projected mine life to four years ahead of first gold production next week.
Perth-based Apex said the increased ore reserve at Wiluna stemmed from a 70% increase in indicated mineral resources announced in September, comprising the Calais underground zone, the East Pit open pit and an independent new underground zone at East Lode North.
Ore reserves at Wiluna now stand at 2.1 million tonnes at 5.7 grams per tonne for 378,000 ounces of gold while global ore reserves now stand at 2.92Mt at 5.9gpt for 548,000oz of gold.
Apex said the increase represented a mine life of four years, up from an initial three-year mine life, on the current projected production profile.
'[This] provides confidence for a much longer mine life as reserves are incrementally added through additional drilling, as demonstrated by the recent discovery of the new Queenie Lode and extensions to the Baldric zone,' Apex said.
The company said drilling to identify new mineralised zones and improve the confidence of currently inferred resources was expected to extend the mine life further.
Meantime, commissioning of the plant is underway with around 150,000t of ore grading 4.1gpt having been delivered to the ROM pad as a result of East Pit mining while first gold from Wiluna is expected during the last week of November.
The crushing circuit has been commissioned with ore mined at the East Pit open cut while the remaining plant circuits have been commissioned on water. All plant circuits are to be commissioned on ore this week.
An Apex spokesperson told MiningNews.net today that the recent raising of $60.5 million would be enough to take the company into production and the company would not require further funding.
The $60.5 million raising took place via a package of senior secured notes together with detachable warrants and detachable gold upside participation (GUP) notes.
On the exploration front, drilling at Wiluna continues to extend the Baldric zone and has identified a new separate mineralised structure, the Queenie Lode.
At Baldric, recent drilling has intersected strong mineralised down plunge of previous drilling with intersections including 10.8m at 9.1gpt gold some 70m down plunge from a previous intersection of 27.2m at 9.8gpt gold.
Drilling has also identified the Queenie Lode, situated between the East and West Lodes.
Two holes have been drilled to date, with the first intersecting a narrow zone strongly mineralised with visible gold, and the second intersecting 8.4m at 9.6gpt gold some 70m from the first.
Shares in Apex remain unchanged at 26c in morning trade.
