Murchison gears up for 2025

There’s no time like the present for gold. The start of April marked a record-breaking peak for the metal, with the gold price rushing past $5000/oz and expectations climbing higher for Australian miners.

With a well-timed entry, Meeka Metals’ (ASX: MEK) highly lucrative Murchison gold project is well on track towards debut gold production by mid-2025.

Expectations for the project are high. Standing among numerous multi-million-ounce gold mines in the prolific Murchison Gold Fields of WA, the project is anticipated to have an annual gold production of 80,000oz during its initial 10-years of production.

Meeka is well on the path towards production, having commenced open pit mining activities ahead of schedule. Alongside this, Meeka is expanding processing infrastructure on site.

The Murchison gold project definitive feasibility study (DFS), released in December 2024, focuses on restarting the fully permitted Andy Well mill, outlining a 10-year production plan up to 80koz per annum and generating strong cashflow for the company.

Meeka Metals currently has established resources at the Turnberry and St Anne’s deposits within the Fairway shear zone. These areas contain broad zones of shallow, high-grade gold mineralisation and many sites that are yet to be identifies by drilling.

The company is focusing on expanding its drilling operations to several promising areas within the Fairway shear zone that have not yet received sufficient follow-up. This work should demonstrate the true extent of the resources this tenure has to offer.

There has been significant progress towards the expansion of the carbon-in-leach (CIL) gold processing plant with the installation of the larger 750kW ball mill completed in March 2025, marking a major milestone in Meeka’s production plan. This follows installation of larger leach tanks, gravity circuit and gold room equipment during January and February 2025.

Open pit production commenced in February 2025 and accelerated during March, achieving 20kBCM daily material movement toward the end of the month. First open pit ore was mined and delivered to the ROM pad in April 2025

In addition to the open pit mining, the company has also commenced underground mining at the high-grade Andy Well mine. Access was established was established in March 2025

and dewatering infrastructure was installed in readiness for ore development ore development and diamond drilling in the coming weeks. The mine is very high grade, with 500koz at a grade of 8.6g/t Au in resource, and is expected to deliver

strong cash flow for the company.

With the start of ore processing and gold production only weeks away, and gold prices showing no indication of decline, Meeka Metals is set for big second half of 2025.

Moving forward through 2025:

April 2025: produce first ore from the open pits.

April 2025: haul ore from the open pit mining area to the processing plant in advance of process plant commissioning.

June 2025: commence underground mining at the high-grade Andy Well mine.

June 2025: commence process plant commissioning.

June 2025: commence growth drilling from underground drill platforms at Andy Well underground mine.

Mid-2025: pour first gold from the processing plant.

Anticipation for the miner is building as expansion work nears completion and the company readies for first gold in mid-2025. Meeka Metals managing director Tim Davidson

speaks with the Australian Mining Review on the company’s already golden year.

AMR: Meeka Metals has officially commenced mining at the Murchison Gold Project. What does this milestone mean for the company? How were you able to overcome challenges to deliver ahead of schedule?

TD: With commencement of mining activities in February 2025, ahead of schedule, we achieved an important milestone for the Murchison gold project and the company. It reflects our deliberate and focussed actions to deliver on the development schedule, and in this instance exceed it, bringing the project and the Company closer to first gold in mid-2025.

The early start resulted from collaboration between our team and our mining service provider, IMC, to identify opportunities to compress the mobilisation timeline and we have been very impressed with their performance to date.

AMR: What makes this deposit so competitive?

TD: We have multiple deposits and mines which provide production flexibility. Specifically for the open pits where we are mining now, they are high grade, 2.5-3g/t gold, shallow and for the first 2-3 years of mining we will be in oxide material which will deliver a lower mining and processing cost.

AMR: With process plant commissioning scheduled for the June 2025 quarter and first gold targeted for mid-year, can you walk us through the key steps in this final phase before production ramps up?

TD: Over the past two quarters we have completed a significant amount of work expanding our processing plant, including installing a larger 750kW ball mill, constructing new larger leach and adsorption tanks. The team are now focussed on plumbing in this new equipment, connecting up power and commissioning the plant.

AMR: The DFS outlines a strong 10-year production plan and robust financial metrics how does this position Meeka Metals for long-term success and potential growth opportunities in a high-price environment?

TD: Our key focus is to deliver on the timeline for first gold in mid-2025. Once this is achieved, our focus will shift to ramping up production and continuing to deliver on the plan we have laid out in the December 2024 DFS which outlines a clear pathway to 75-80kozpa production.

We will then look at opportunities to grow production beyond that level. We are in a situation where we will be mining more ore than we can process through the existing processing plant, so there is clear opportunity for further expansion of processing capacity, and we will work through that in the medium term but our immediate focus is delivering first gold and ramping up to that 80koz per annum run rate.

AMR: Looking beyond first gold, what’s next for Meeka Metals? What plans for further resource expansion, exploration, or strategic partnerships in the pipeline?

TD: In addition to the significant opportunity to expand our existing resources with further drilling, we have control of a 20km stretch of greenstones which already host 700koz of gold between Turnbery and St Anne’s, that are highly prospective for further discovery but remain under drilled. Once generating cash flow, we will deploy some of this capital into new resource growth through targeted exploration.

The future is looking bright for Meeka Metals, this proactive WA miner has demonstrated its ability to deliver ahead of schedule and once their initial cashflow commences from production this year, there are clear avenues for expansion and future development.  The soaring gold price will aid these advances and provide strong profit potential for the foreseeable future.