Barton Gold Commences Definitive Feasibility Study for Central Gawler Mill Restart

Barton Gold Holdings (ASX: BGD) (OTCQB: BGDFF) has commenced a definitive feasibility study (DFS) targeting Stage 1 production of the Central Gawler Mill (CGM) at its Challenger gold project in South Australia.

The company has already appointed Perth-based Altris Engineering to lead the study, with SRK Consulting (Australasia) completing work on CGM’s historic tailings storage facility (with coarse material up to 1 gram per tonne gold), Tetra Tech Coffey designing a tailings storage lift, and GPA Engineering supporting engineering, metallurgy, and process plant design.

Target date for DFS completion is March 2026 with commissoning of the CGM to start during 2026, followed by Phase 1 operations to reprocess tailings material and Phase 2 introducing fresh ore.

Preliminary Analysis

Preliminary analysis by Ammjohn Solutions has estimated reinstatement to the CGM’s original 600,000 tonnes per annum capacity would cost Barton around $26 million, including upgrades to mill motors, full automation, and a new pre-leach thickener to improve efficiency.

Current mineral resources at the Challenger project sit at 313,000 ounces gold (from 10.6 million tonnes at 0.92 grams per tonne) including 194,000oz (1.87Mt at 3.23g/t) across existing open pit and underground mines.

The open pit at Challenger Main contains 70,000oz gold (0.65Mt at 3.36g/t), and Challenger West has 11,600oz (0.03Mt at 10.7g/t).

Challenger Underground (above 215mRL) contains 89,400oz gold (0.98Mt at 2.84g/t), while Challenger Deeps (below 90mRL) has 23,000oz (0.21Mt at 3.5g/t).

Improving Project Economics

Barton managing director Alexander Scanlon said the timing of the DFS will work well in concert with improving economics.

“With gold prices at all-time highs, the opportunity to leverage our existing infrastructure to operations and cash flow has never been more attractive,” he said.

“We are targeting a low-cost and low-risk transition to operations by the end of 2026 as well as a re-rating of our equity to a ‘producer’ profile and operating free cash flows to fund our planned regional growth at the Tunkillia project.”

All of the Challenger mineralisation is adjacent to the CGM, with additional lower-grade stockpiles and higher-grade mill residuals located on the run of mine pad.

Barton has not included these materials in the Challenger resource estimate.