Base and precious metals producer Red River Resources Limited (ASX: RVR) has reported an Inferred Mineral Resource of 225,000 tonnes @ 2.5 g/t Au for the Bakers Creek Stockpile at the Hillgrove Gold Mine in New South Wales.
Managing Director Mel Palancian said that processing the Bakers Creek stockpile will allow Red River to commence gold production at Hillgrove in CY2020 using existing equipment and infrastructure, leveraging its exposure to high gold prices. Red River acquired the project in August 2019.
Metallurgical test work carried out by Red River indicates 75-80% of the gold contained in the Bakers Creek Stockpile can be recovered to gold doré using the existing Hillgrove Mill (onsite gravity and flotation concentrate leaching) with minimal capital expenditure.
“The Bakers Creek Stockpile offers Red River an exceptionally low capital cost restart route for the Hillgrove Gold Mine,” Mr Palancian said.
“The short time line to restart operations combined with the forecast very low operating costs (no mining cost) will allow Red River to generate material cash flow over the 12 month period of processing the Stockpile, taking advantage of the current seven year high gold price.
“Red River is also working on the full restart of Hillgrove’s underground mining operations, which will occur once the Stockpile has been treated.”
The Bakers Creek Stockpile was produced during the mining of the Bakers Creek Mine, which produced 303,900oz gold from 175,980 tonnes of ore at approximately 49 g/t Au during operation from 1877 to 1921 (production recorded up to 1916).
The ore was hand sorted underground and again on surface, with the stockpile containing material rejected during surface hand sorting. The stockpile is approximately 105m by 70m and 15-20m deep. The road that cuts the Bakers Creek Waste Stockpile (refer to Figure 1) was constructed by Straits Resources and is the main haul road to the Hillgrove Mill (distance to Hillgrove Mill of 4.2km).
Red River recently acquired the high-grade Hillgrove Gold-Antimony Project, which the company says will enable it to build a multi-asset operating business focused on base and precious metals.
The company’s foundation asset is the Thalanga Base Metal Operation in Northern Queensland, which was acquired in 2014 and where Red River commenced copper, lead and zinc concentrate production in September 2017.
