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Vertex Minerals (ASX:VTX) is on track to sell first gold from its Reward Gold Mine in the Eastern Lachlan Fold Belt of central west New South Wales next month, with commissioning of its 100%-owned gravity gold plant and first gold ore processed.
The market has responded strongly to the news, which represents a key milestone for Vertex, and one which has been delivered on time and within budget.
In early trade today, the share price soared close to 20%, to 27 cents.
Major milestone for Vertex
Getting to the point of commissioning the 110ktpa gravity gold plant has involved the processing facility rebuild, refurbishment and installation, which the company reports ‘progressed safely, efficiently and to plan, with the focus now turning from electrical, mechanical automation and wet commissioning, to running the first ore through the plant’.
Stockpiled ore has been processed to a gold concentrate ‘with visible gold evident in concentrate’. That stockpile will continue to be used for early production.
Vertex Executive Chair Roger Jackson is a geologist, who’s been in the mining industry for more than 30 years as a mine operator, services contractor and explorer.
‘Everything’s going great here’
“Everything’s going great here,” Jackson said from site this morning.
“We put dirt through yesterday – our first commissioning ore – and it went through fantastically!
“Our team were more than happy, and it produced some gold at the end as well, so I our guess our first gold was produced yesterday, but the commissioning period will continue on for a week or so until we get it up to full steam.
“We’ll be in the processing status following that.
“This is a great milestone for Vertex being that we planned to be a gold miner – that’s what we want to do – we’ve got a great gold mine to feed this plant.
“It’ll be one of the highest-grade gold mines in Australia when we start mining the Reward Gold Mine, which is just beside me here – about 100 metres away.
“Getting this plant up and operational at a time when gold prices are at the highest levels we’ve seen (… well forever…) having all our permits and everything in place, this is great milestone to have a plant nearly ready to start processing our ore.”
Key personnel onboarded
The company has onboarded key personnel including a General Manager, Commercial Manager, Environmental Officer, Gold Room Tech, Mine Engineer, Maintenance Manager, Training and Safety Co-ordinator and plant operators. It’s installing an Ore Sorter Module, with that due for completion early next month.
Gold refining agreement in place
Vertex has a gold refining agreement with ABC bullion in Sydney – only four hours’ drive from the site.
Located in the NSW central west region, the Reward Gold Mine is understood to be one of Australia’s highest grade gold deposits with a resource set at 419,000 tonnes, at 16.72 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, for 225,200 ounces of contained precious metal.
The mine is part of the company’s Hill End Gold Project which has 10 mining leases and three exploration licenses. It has 14km of continuous gold lode with the gold recovery rate to gravity exceeding 90%.
Heading underground
Roger Jackson said the underground Reward mine would be ready to feed the plant soon.
“We’ve got the ore sorter being completed in the next two weeks; we’ll be starting to feed through the stockpiles; and we’ll be starting then to also develop the underground Reward and so that we’ll be able to provide feed in three to four months from the high-grade underground Reward Gold Mine.”
Vertex gold portfolio extends east & west
Vertex Minerals also has the Hargraves Gold Project near the town of Mudgee in NSW, which has a 2.3Mt resource at 2.38g/t gold for 177,000 ounces; it has the Pride of Elvire Gold Project north of Southern Cross in WA; and, it has the Taylors Rock Project which is 80km west-southwest of Norseman in WA’s southern goldfields, which claims gold, lithium and nickel potential.
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