Bellevue Gold has announced the start of mining at the Vanguard open pit at its Bellevue gold project in WA.
Contractor NRW Holdings has mobilised and begun extracting gold from the open pit, which is scheduled to provide roughly 10,000 ounces of gold for processing in mid-2023.
Mining at Vanguard will allow Bellevue to generate early cashflow via a toll treating arrangement.
NRW Holdings has also been contracted for the construction of a tailings facility. Bellevue advises that site clearing is underway for the facility.
NRW Holdings has indicated that, where possible, it will source materials and supplies from nearby Leinster and Kalgoorlie to support the local economy.
The contract is scheduled for completed in November.
NRW chief executive officer Jules Pemberton said he was “delighted” to have been awarded the contract with Bellevue Gold.
“NRW has a long history as a high-quality provider of mining services to our clients in the gold industry and I look forward to a successful partnership with Bellevue,” he said.
In the same announcement, Bellevue reported steady advancement of the one-million-tonnes-per-annum processing plant at the project site.
With the ball mill ready for installation, all critical components for the processing plant are now in Australia, which significantly de-risks the Bellevue gold project, the company said.
When fully operational, the Bellevue gold project will be primarily driven by underground mining. Bellevue forecasts the project to become one of the highest-grade, lowest-cost mines in the country.
The project is predicted to produce an average of over 200,000 ounces of gold per year for the first five years, with an all-in sustaining cost of $1000–1100 per ounce.
Considering the high quality and low costs, Bellevue predicts the project to yield $2.1 billion of free cashflow over its 10-year life.