Carbine Resources has completed the pre-feasibility study for gold and copper tailings mining at the 130-year old Mount Morgan mine in Queensland.
The company has identified potential to mine an average of 31,200oz of gold, 3200 tonnes of copper and 211,000 tonnes of pyrite each year.
All-in sustaining costs for gold have come in at US$234 per ounce, which will make it one of the lowest cost operations in Australia.
Overall the total JORC resource is 8.4 million tonnes at 1.23gpt of gold, for an estimated total of 369,000 ounces of gold over 12 years.
The new project also promises to supply around 12,300 tonnes of copper.
Newly appointed managing director Tony James said the new management team would undertake a review of the project and move on finalising the Definitive Feasibility Study to consider operationalk parameters such as plant throughput and development timing, as well as funding options.
“The short and long term opportunities associated with Mount Morgan were impossible to overlook during our due diligence of the asset,” he said.
“We will continue to progress finalisation of the DFS currently underway, while also conducting a review of the data with respect to the development strategy to ensure we can generate the maximum return for shareholders from this outstanding opportunity.
“The selected processing technology for the successful extraction of gold, copper and pyrite from the Mount Morgan tailings is readily available and represents a logical and commercial direction for this project and potentially other dormant Australian projects.”