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- Re-entry a significant milestone towards restarting production
- Lower-than-expected water levels identified
- Generally dry workings and largely serviceable infrastructure.
- Critical underground data collected to support operational restart
Valiant Gold (ASX:VAL) is on target to bring the “zombie” Comet gold project in Western Australia back to life after successfully re-entering the historic mine.
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The Comet gold project was placed on care and maintenance in fiscal year 2023 when former owner Westgold Resources shut it down because the assets were “not of scale” and did not fit their strategy of focusing on larger, higher-grade core operations.
However, in what is a key milestone towards restarting production, Valiant has found lower-than-expected water levels, generally dry workings and largely serviceable infrastructure after re-entering the historic mine.
MD and CEO, Brendan Tritton, reported that ground support was also in generally good condition, with minimal rehabilitation identified, potentially reducing the scope and duration of restart activities.
“Initial observations have been very positive, with water levels, ground support and infrastructure all presenting favourably. These findings strengthen our confidence in the restart pathway as we advance engineering, mine planning, dewatering and site establishment activities.”
The findings from the successful re-entry will be incorporated into ongoing site establishment requirements, engineering, mine planning, and technical studies, with options to fast-track the restart timeline to be considered.
Demerged from Westgold Resources (ASX:WGX) Valiant holds 100% of the Reedy and Comet gold projects – brownfields operations with historical production of over one million ounces and a combined 1.2 million ounces mineral resource.
The Comet gold project is located 20km southeast of Cue, proximal to the Tuckabianna Mill and 90 km from the Bluebird Mill, via the Great Northern Highway.
Valiant has an ore processing agreement with Westgold Resources to process ore through both mills.
The project has a strong production history, having delivered approximately 1.4 million tonnes (Mt) at 3.17 grams per tonne (g/t) gold for 144,000 ounces between 2017 and 2022 under Westgold.
The Comet mine trend contains the Eclipse, Comet, Comet North, and Pinnacles gold deposits for a total mineral resource estimate (MRE) of 3.77 Mt at 2.5 g/t gold for 304,000 ounces of gold.
VAL opened steady at 19.3¢.
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