Ora Banda Mining Ltd makes progress with ramp-up activities at Davyhurst Gold

() (FRA:M6N) continues to make progress with the ramp-up of activities at Davyhurst Gold Project in Western Australia, with actions taken to ensure delivery of definitive feasibility study (DFS) production levels of around 82,000 ounces recovered for FY22.

Missouri open pit mining is on schedule to begin next month with key items of the mining fleet and site facilities delivered to site.

This open pit is a source of higher grade, harder primary ore feed which will improve mill throughput and gold production.

COVID-19 impacts

Open pit and underground mining productivity and production levels have and continue to be impacted by COVID-19 related travel restrictions and the associated extremely tight and highly competitive labour market in Western Australia.

Additionally, processing plant throughput during April and May 2021 has continued to be negatively impacted by low slurry densities caused by the high proportion of viscous, low density oxide material from Stage 1 of the Riverina Open Pit.

The company has taken steps to increase the availability of fresh rock to the mill which is expected to increase gold production levels to DFS levels during the September quarter.

Contained gold within ore mined to date of 26,000 ounces plus ore scheduled to be mined to June 30, 2021, – around 9,000 ounces – remains in line with the DFS estimate of 35,000 ounces while the gold production outlook for FY21 is revised to 13,000-18,000 ounces.

The FY22 gold production outlook of 8,000 ounces recovered, remains unchanged and consistent with the DFS.

“Accelerating ramp up”

Increasingly harder transitional and primary material from the Riverina open pit, together with increasing quantities of primary ore from the Golden Eagle underground mine and the commencement of primary ore deliveries from the Missouri open pit in late June will see a more uniform ore blend available for processing at Davyhurst from July.

This more uniform ore blend is expected to increase monthly gold production to DFS levels during the September quarter.

Ora Banda managing director David Quinlivan said: “Whilst there are always challenges when commissioning a mining project, we are encouraged by the refinements we are making to improve gold production towards the DFS estimates.

“The advancement of Missouri in the production schedule will go a long way to conquering ore viscosity issues encountered during commissioning.

“We are also seeing improvements in a number of other areas of the project, in particular at Riverina and Golden Eagle, which we believe will bode well as we accelerate our ramp-up.”

Missouri open pit

In the DFS, Missouri was planned to be mined in a single stage, which incorporated a three-month pre-strip, but the company has now redesigned the Missouri Open Pit into two stages, which allows ore mining to commence after a modest amount of site preparation.

The Missouri ore reserve grade of 2.6 g/t gold (1.5 million tonnes at 2.6 g/t for 130,000 ounces) is materially higher than the Riverina ore reserve grade of 1.8 g/t gold and mining of the Missouri open pit will increase the average gold grade processed through the Davyhurst mill from July 2021.

Riverina open pit

Mining at Riverina remains slightly ahead of schedule, having delivered more ore tonnes at a slightly lower grade for more total ounces than estimated in the DFS to date.

While the process plant throughput has been impacted by the high proportion of Riverina low density oxide feed, increasingly harder transitional and primary material is scheduled to be mined at Riverina from June 2021.

After lower initial mine ore grades being delivered to the…