Great Divide Mining Ltd. has advanced its development plans for Challenger gold mine in Adelong, New South Wales, in order to accelerate the mine to sustainable commercial production levels.
Great Divide said it has worked to upgrade the gold separation plant into a continuous, commercial-scale operation.
As early as August, the company had a spiral separator pack delivered and installed to site.
The upgrade allowed Challenger to implement a continuous, recycled-water-based gold separation, rather than the batch processing it was using previously.
Great Divide CEO Justin Haines said: “This upgrade strengthens the company’s pathway toward stabilised production and near-term gold concentrate sales.
“It’s always been about transitioning from gold explorer to gold producer. It’s always been about moving toward sustainable positive cash-flow.”
Haines explained that installing the spiral separator pack will balance the crushing circuit and processing plants.
The crushing plant could crush and grind ore in just three to four hours to keep the gold separating plant operating for four hours.
“Batch processing was just never going to deliver a profitable operation to shareholders. We identified this in our due diligence and confirmed it in early plant trial operations,” Haines said.
The company is also updating mine development plans to suit sole-funded operations.
The ramp-up to higher production is likely to be extended slightly under these plans, resulting in a lower and slower capital and operating cost requirement.
Great Divide will work on building production levels as it generates cashflow to undertake subsequent stages of development.
The company’s focus for the next one to three months will be on optimising works, including finalising the installation of spirals and jigs into the processing plants.
The company will also work on technical studies to support the potential small open cut at the Challenger extended deposit and environmental and approvals works to meet regulatory requirements.
