Auric Mining to acquire historic Burbanks processing plant in WA’s goldfields

Auric Mining (ASX: AWJ) will outlay $4.4 million to acquire the historic Burbanks gold processing plant in Coolgardie, including all related assets and infrastructure, from private vendors.

Burbanks is a primary crushing, grinding and carbon-in-leach (CIL) facility with a nameplate production capacity of 180,000 tonnes per annum and all requisite infrastructure, permits and licences in place, including access to critical power and tailings dams.

The company will spend the coming months completing technical, operational, licensing and legal due diligence on the asset, which is located within trucking distance of existing Auric gold resources.

Direct ownership

Auric managing director Mark English said the Burbanks acquisition would position the company for further success and growth through the direct ownership of milling infrastructure in WA’s goldfields region.

“We are firm believers that the concept of buying quality assets at depressed valuations makes outsized value creation more probable,” he said.

“We will have the foundations to achieve this through the acquisition of the Burbanks plant and its related assets.”

“It will fast-track Auric towards becoming a fully integrated sustainable gold producer in the heart of the goldfields with complete control over our production.”

Discounted price

Mr English said the asking price represented a “vast discount” to the intrinsic and replacement value of Burbanks and to its strategic value to Auric.

The company has already paid a non-refundable $100,000 deposit to the vendors and has sufficient cash reserves to fund the acquisition should it proceed to completion.

Auric plans to refurbish the plant – which has been closed since 2019 – and increase the capacity based on certain optimisation scenarios.

The company anticipates the refurbishment will generate commercial options including the treatment of ore from Auric’s resources as well as third-party toll treatment once the plant has been recommissioned.

Three Mile Hill deal

In October, Auric and its Kalgoorlie-based joint venture partner BML Ventures finalised a deal with Focus Minerals (ASX: FML) to process up to an additional 120,000t of ore from the Jeffreys Find gold mine at Focus’ Three Mile Hill plant.

The partners had already committed to feeding a minimum 40,000t through the plant as part of a first campaign.

Three Mile Hill has a nameplate capacity of 1.2Mtpa.

BML has delivered 25,000t to the plant to date and has a further 50,000t stockpiled on the run-of-mine pad at Jeffreys Find, awaiting haulage.