Final payday for Auric at Jeffreys Find gold mine in WA
Auric Mining is lining up one last lucrative swing of the bat at its Jeffreys Find gold mine near Norseman in Western Australia as the company gets set to pull up to $4.5m out of the very last 60,000 tonne batch of ore.
Marking the final act of an uber-successful two-year toll mining campaign, the last 60,000 tonne parcel of ore is now en route to the Three Mile Hill Mill in Coolgardie. Processing is scheduled to begin in the first week of July.
About 16,000 tonnes have already been stockpiled at the mill and the company says haulage is continuing daily to meet the full campaign target.
Auric is eyeing a final gold tally of around 2,750 ounces from the latest batch - a figure that would push total production from Jeffreys Find beyond the 30,000-ounce mark since toll mining began two years ago. According to management, most of the mining costs have already been paid, positioning this last campaign as a high-margin operation that could potentially generate between $7 million and $9 million in free cash, available to be split between Auric and its contract mining partner BML Ventures.
'Auric will bank more than $15 million from mining at Jeffreys Find.'
Auric Mining managing director Mark English
Under the 50:50 joint venture with Kalgoorlie-based BML, which operates and manages the mine, net proceeds from gold sales are shared equally once all direct costs are covered. Auric says it expects to pocket between $3.5 million and $4.5 million for itself from the final campaign to round out a total earn of more than $15 million from the project.
Auric Mining managing director Mark English said: ' Auric will bank more than $15 million from mining at Jeffreys Find. It's been a game changer for us as we transition to becoming a gold producer in our own right. These additional funds will be used to support the operations at Munda,'
Rehabilitation and demobilisation activities are now underway at the mine to wrap up what the company says has been a textbook toll-treatment partnership.
The unique structure of the Jeffreys Find joint venture saw BML Ventures shoulder all mining, haulage, and processing costs upfront, allowing Auric to benefit from a clean, low-risk exposure to high-margin gold revenues.
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