Tolling Agreement Reached With Lorena Gold Mine
Laneway Resources Limited (ASX:LNY) has completed the final agreements to enable recommencement of mining operations at the high grade Sherwood deposit within the 100% owned Agate Creek Gold Project in North Queensland.
Laneway has executed a Toll Milling Agreement with Lorena Gold Mine Pty Ltd at the operational Carbon in Leach (CIL) gold processing plant located near Cloncurry in north west Queensland.
Laneway’s ore is scheduled into Lorena’s processing plans during November correlating well with Laneway’s mining schedule. Laneway anticipates the Lorena plant will yield >90% gold recoveries given its configuration with the added benefit of robust processing rates (~35 tonnes per hour) which will mean processing of the initial 18,000 t batch should be completed in approximately three weeks.
Laneway should receive payment for the majority of the gold recovered from the initial 18,000t campaign within 60 days of start of mining.
Transportation of the ore will commence during October with ore processing scheduled to commence mid-November. Toll Treatment including crushing has been set as a fixed price per tonne of ore processed.
Whilst the agreement entered into with Lorena Gold Mine will allow for the subsequent batch of ore in this mining campaign to also be processed through their plant, Laneway is continuing to progress other processing plant options which may be utilised longer term for the processing of high grade ore from Agate Creek including for the second batch of ore from this mining campaign.
Pit designs and mine planning have now been completed with several scenarios compared as part of the final mine planning to optimise ore timing and cash flows. A two stage approach has been preferred which will maximise near term cash flow.
Following a competitive tender process, the Mining Contract has been awarded to well credentialed contractor, MAAS Group with final rostering and Safety Management plans now being finalised. Mobilisation of Maas Group’s mining equipment is due to commence late next week, with drill and blast activities to commence shortly thereafter and the expectation mining will commence during the first week of October
The two combined cut back designs as per below will allow the economic extraction in the upcoming mining campaign of 42,800 tonnes at 6.5g/t for 8,950 Ounces of contained gold at an overall stripping ratio of 11:1.
Potential for further high grade mining beyond this next campaign has also been identified with one of the larger Whittle runs generated a much larger pit shell containing 120,000 t of high grade material at 5.7 g/t Au for 22,000 Oz Au. Mining of this larger pit shell will require amendments to the currently granted Environmental Authority conditions associated with Mining Lease 100030. Background environmental studies are being undertaken currently to allow for lodgement of the necessary EA amendments to allow this scale of mining in future years.
