Classic Minerals plans trial mining at Kat Gap gold project

Classic Minerals (ASX: CLZ) has elected to potentially fast-track its assessment of the ore reserves at its Kat Gap gold project in Western Australia with a proposed trial mining exercise.

The company believes undertaking trial mining and processing via a stage one trial pit will create important data which can then be utilised in its current program to finalise an ore reserve for the project.

Chief executive officer Dean Goodwin said the trial will also assist in the calibration of a mining and metallurgy framework prior to full-scale mining and production from the Kat Gap gold project.

Important step to full-scale production

He said mining and processing of trial mining ore will be an important step towards full-scale production activities, providing the company with the opportunity to fully test and refine its Gekko gold plant along with its mining methods.

“I’m so excited about getting those earthmoving machines back to work on the trial pit because in the next month or so we’ll finally get a good hard look at the high-grade portion of the main ore zone within the new indicated resource,” Mr Goodwin said.

“It’s going to be one of those special moments. They don’t come along very often in one’s career so I can’t wait. It’s a proud moment for me and the rest of the team to see all that hard work that has gone into the drilling and resource work over these last few years come to fruition.”

Classic recently provided an update of its gold resource base at Kat Gap, with the upgraded resource numbers increasing its confidence level.

The indicated upgrade also provides it with key data for the calculation of JORC Compliant Reserve ounces.

First gold pour

Just last week Classic hit a significant milestone when it poured its first Kat Gap gold bar.

That special moment occurred less than a month after the recent commissioning of the Kat Gap plant.

The proposed mining trial will help the company further refine the plant’s performance in the lead-up to full scale production.

The trial mining plan is likely to see Classic utilise a large portion of the oxide component of the indicated resource down to a depth of 45m.

It is estimated that preparing a trial pit would take approximately two months to complete. It is expected a further two months would be required to unveil the ore reserve estimates from the trial mining data.

On track to full production

The company is confident the trial mining results will help place it on track to move into production within two months of identifying an economically viable ore reserve.

Mr Goodwin said there are three processes that will assist the company obtain the data it is chasing to finalise an ore reserve number.

This includes utilising the trial mining program to better understand the oxidised portion of the indicated project block model, with ore from the trial pit to be mined according to the current block model outline.

It is believed that processing the oxidised ore through the Gekko gravity plant will help develop an accurate reconciliation of the tonnes, grade and recoverable ounces of gold from the indicated block model. The ultimate aim would be to use the information acquired to prove the veracity of the existing block model and indicated resource.

The trial would also assist the project’s geological and engineering teams measure structural data first-hand from the walls and floor of the trial pit.

Key data for future planning

Finally, the trial pit will provide direct structural measurements to be taken of exposed gold mineralisation.

Classic also hopes that trial mining may potentially identify the presence and attitude of additional lodes that could be targeted for increases to the overall resource, which in turn could have a positive effect on project economics.

Data from the trial pit mining exercise could also potentially play an important role in plans to develop a stage two open pit down to fresh rock.