The Lake Roe gold project in Western Australia.
Results from an underground study have opened up high-grade potential below Breaker Resources’ Bombora open pit in the Lake Roe gold project in Western Australia.
The study was completed on the Tura lode, one of many high-grade lodes discovered in the last 18 months below the 824,000oz open pit resource at Bombora.
It identified potential for mining 664,000t at 4.4g/t for 93,000oz over a two-year period at an estimated production cost of about $1100/oz.
As a result, further underground studies are planned on other high-grade lodes, the extent of which is expanding with ongoing drilling.
Three diamond rigs are now running continuously with a focus on increasing the indicated component of the underground resource to assist planned mining studies.
Breaker managing director Tom Sanders said the underground study was a first step in the company’s analysis of the mining potential below the open pit resource.
“A recent open pit study demonstrated potential for a large open pit with strong early free cash flow,” he said.
“We now can complement this with expanding amounts of high-grade underground feed when the production cost of underground mining is less than that in an open pit.
“It is clear that we have the building blocks for a significant standalone operation that we can keep growing with further drilling”.
The Lake Roe gold project is a virgin 1.7moz greenfields discovery in the Kalgoorlie region, one of the world’s most prolific and top-ranked mining jurisdictions.
Breaker has spent the bulk of the last four years drilling out a 9km long mineralised trend with the majority of the work focused on the 3km-long Bombora deposit with the aim of establishing an early production option from which to expand the project.
