Bardoc Gold has taken further steps towards its objective of joining the ranks of Australia’s mid-tier gold producers during the December Quarter, with its transition to developer status now imminent and its development pathway substantially de-risked.
The company has consolidated a 247km2 ground position 40km north of Kalgoorlie, with more than 3Moz in Mineral Resources. The March 2020 PFS envisaged a 135kozpa operation over an initial eight years from four cornerstone deposits.
Bardoc completed a transformational capital raising in July 2020, which was strongly supported by a number of leading Australian and international institutional and strategic investors. The capital raising increased Bardoc’s cash reserves to over $35m, putting it in a very strong position as it makes the transition from explorer to developer to producer.
CEO Robert Ryan said a key highlight of the quarter was the announcement that the miner had secured a binding off-take agreement with leading global minerals trader, MRI Trading AG, for the gold concentrate to be produced in the later years of its operations.
“This represents a significant de-risking milestone for the project and provides a solid foundation for our debt funding strategy,” he said.
“MRI has an enormous depth of experience in the global mining commodities market – both with customers and financial institutions – and we’re very pleased to have them on board as a committed customer for our future gold concentrate production, which accounts for approximately half of the forecast life-of-mine output from the Bardoc Project.
“In parallel with these off-take negotiations, we continued to advance the Definitive Feasibility Study for the Bardoc Project, which is on-track for delivery in late March 2021.
“As part of this process, we have also continued to engage with potential lenders regarding project financing, with a view to making a Final Investment Decision in Q3 2021. Our hope is that, by the time we head to Diggers & Dealers in Kalgoorlie in August, we will have a fully-funded pathway to production at Bardoc with mining underway and site works beginning at Australia’s newest gold mine.
“Pleasingly, our drilling and exploration programs during the Quarter also continued to deliver exceptional results, with assays from the ongoing 40,000m drilling program returning outstanding intercepts from the Aphrodite, Zoroastrian and North Kanowna Star deposits.”
