Barton Gold’s Central Gawler Mill a golden goose

For Barton Gold (ASX: BGD) its Central Gawler Mill in South Australia is the gift that keeps on giving.

Since conducting a major clean-out and upgrade of the historic mill in late 2022, Barton has obtained significant returns of gold bearing materials throughout 2023 after it recovered an initial estimated over 10 tonnes of gold bearing materials from the gold room, ball mills, sumps, floor and gravity circuit during a review of the mill.

The company is now celebrating the receipt of preliminary assays for the third parcel of cleanout materials.

Significant new assays

The third round of assays of approximately 3.6 dry tonnes recovered from the mill have assayed at an average of approximately 1,700 grams per tonne gold, for around 210 ounces of gold of contained metal.

Earlier this year the company reported that assays from a first parcel of approximately 3.8 dry tonnes returned an average grade of around 3,000 grams per tonne of gold for a contained metal value of approximately 375 ounces of gold.

Assays from a subsequent second parcel of approximately 3.6 dry tonnes returned an average grade of around 7,000 grams per tonne of gold, for a contained metal value of approximately 815 ounces of gold.

Bonus gold return

Total saleable gold concentrates have now added up to approximately 11 dry tonnes grading at around 3,880 grams per tonne of gold, for a contained metal value of around 1,400 ounces of gold.

Managing director Alex Scanlon said this latest gold collection is the final main parcel of materials from the December 2022 mill cleanout.

“Our mill is a valuable, fully permitted strategic infrastructure platform for our Stage 1 and long-term strategies. The more than $5 million worth of gold it has yielded to date is a considerable ‘advance bonus’ for Barton,” he said.

Mill growing in value

As a key piece of infrastructure in the Gawler area, the historic mill provides significant and current value for Barton.

As part of the December 2022 cleanout program, Barton also commissioned an independent valuation report of the mill and associated site infrastructure.

The results of the report helped identify the correct level of insurance cover to protect the strategic assets while Barton continues its regional development and assessment of potential ‘Stage 1’ operations utilising the Central Gawler Mill.

Just how valuable the mill is to Barton and the mining industry in the area was confirmed when the report valued it and associated infrastructure at over $100 million on an ‘as new’ replacement value basis, and over $50 million on an ‘as is’ indemnity value basis.

New seismic campaign

In what has been a highly active period for Barton, the company recently completed a regional seismic program at the nearby Tarcoola Gold Project.

The program featured the use of more than 40km of geophones laid out along five lines, across an approximate 13km long zone prospective for repeats of the Perseverance Mine’s mineralised structures and high-grade gold.

A combination of light and heavy- duty equipment was used to generate a signal captured by the geophones, which will now be analysed to create a higher resolution image of immediate sub-surface structures across Barton’s priority target area.

OTCQB and Frankfurt listings

At the same time Barton successfully commenced trading its fully paid ordinary shares via the OTCQB market and the Frankfurt stock exchange.

The company now has a secondary trading listing on the US OTCQB market with the ticker code BGDFF, with JWTT Inc as its OTCQB Sponsor.

Barton also gained another secondary listing on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange with the ticker code BGD3.