Barton Gold Confirms $26m Capex for Central Gawler Mill Upgrade and Restart

Barton Gold Holdings (ASX: BGD) (OTCQB: BGDFF) has confirmed capital costs of $26 million to upgrade and fully reinstate the company’s Central Gawler Mill in South Australia to its original designed capacity of 600,000 tonnes per annum fresh ore, equating to a processing cost of $44.50 per tonne.

The work would also include upgrades to mill motors, automation and a new pre-leach thickener to improve efficiency.

Barton engaged engineering consultant Ammjohn Solutions to review the mill’s restart earlier this year, leveraging existing infrastructure and recommending potential enhancements to improve gold recovery and operational efficiency.

Cost Advantages

Managing director Alexander Scanlon said the reinstatement would present significant cost advantages compared to building a new mill or utilising third-party toll milling.

“The Central Gawler Mill offers significant leverage for a low-cost transition to production at a fraction of the cost of building new [and] existing infrastructure also offers more financing options, meaning we will not need to seek third-party toll milling services while sacrificing profitability,” Mr Scanlon said.

Tailings reprocessing could present a further opportunity to defer capital cost elements including crushing, grinding and gravity circuit refurbishment and upgrades to a later date.

“This could reduce our upfront capital requirements for the first 24 months of operation, with such works funded from operating cash flow and before fresh ore supplies enter the mill feed schedule,” he said.

Historical Operations

The Central Gawler Mill was built in 2002 and expanded in 2010 before being put on care and maintenance eight years later.

It is a conventional carbon-in-pulp plant incorporating two-stage crushing, two-stage grinding (in two ball mills), a gravity gold recovery circuit, leaching and adsorption tanks, elution and electrowinning through to production of doré.

During its operating years, the mill produced 1.2 million ounces of gold with average recoveries of between 94% and 95%.

Updated Challenger MRE

The Central Gawler Mill analysis follows an updated mineral resource estimate (MRE) for the Challenger gold project located adjacent to the mill.

The new estimate sits at 223,000 ounces gold, with over 80,000oz grading 3.75 grams per tonne in open pit extensions and over 20,000oz at 3.98g/t in the shallow underground area.

Mr Scanlon said the company now had the “building blocks in place” to carry out its regional precious metals development strategy.