Companies:

 

Articles:

 
Mining

Native Mineral Resources and Great Divide Mining Form Yellow Jack-Blackjack Gold Processing JV

Go to Imelda Cotton author's page
By Imelda Cotton - 
Native Mineral Resources Great Divide Mining ASX NMR GDM Yellow Jack Blackjack JV
Copied

Native Mineral Resources Holdings (ASX: NMR) has proposed a 50:50 joint venture with Great Divide Mining (ASX: GDM), whereby Native Minerals will process ore from Great Divide’s Yellow Jack gold project near Greenvale in Queensland at its Blackjack operation, 280 kilometres away.

Yellow Jack is an oxide gold resource with a maiden inferred mineral resource estimate of 1.84 million tonnes grading 0.86 grams per tonne gold for 51,100 ounces, which remains open at depth and along strike with initial drilling limited to only 70 metres.

Great Divide completed confirmatory drilling at Yellow Jack in 2024, but then postponed plans for the start of geological and mining optimisation studies after deciding to seek ore processing options.

Joint Venture Terms

Under the terms of the proposal, Great Divide will haul mined ore from Yellow Jack to the recently-refurbished Blackjack mill for processing alongside ore from Native Minerals’ Blackjack and Far Fanning deposits.

Native Mineral will be responsible for selling Yellow Jack ore, with the two companies sharing profits equally after deducting mining, transport, and processing costs.

Great Divide will pay all costs related to operational, infrastructure, utility, staffing, haulage, ore processing – including crushing, grinding, concentration, flotation, drying, and weighing – and associated activities.

Native Mineral has also commissioned a third-party study to optimise plant processing and upgrade throughput at Blackjack.

Yellow Jack Advancement

The agreement represents a material advancement for the Yellow Jack project consistent with Great Divide’s plan to rapidly progress to explorer-miner-producer status, enabling the company to accelerate development and mining works while derisking its recovery of costs.

Native Mineral chief executive officer Blake Cannavo said the proposed JV underlined the company’s capacity to process additional ore at Blackjack.

“Having refurbished and brought Blackjack back into production this year, we now can grow the plant’s output to become a central hub for gold processing in the Charters Towers region,” he said.

Great Divide chief executive officer Justin Haines said that securing a partner to advance mining at Yellow Jack would enable the company to bring on-line a second project with near-term cash-flow.