Trial mining makes Impact

PERTH-BASED junior Impact Minerals has set the ball rolling for trial mining at its Blackridge gold project in Queensland.
Following an agreement for tribute mining with Nimble Resources (which will carry all costs for mining, processing and rehabilitation), the trial mining program has been capped at 1m loose cubic metres of oxide material (about 1.6mt) over a three-year period.
Impact Minerals Limited managing director Dr Mike Jones said the agreement marked a “very positive step forward” for the Blackridge project.
“We know that the best way to determine grade in coarse gold deposits such as Blackridge is to simply start mining,” he said.
“This is inherently very high risk, and so this agreement gives Impact a very low risk entry to mining, by trial mining only a modest part of the mineralised area which extends over at least 1500m along trend.
“In addition Impact, under the royalty payment provisions, will receive at least a modest cash flow from the trial.”
The royalty payment will be based on a sliding scale Net Smelter Royalty (NSR) of up to 15pc – depending on the average monthly grade of gold mined.
The results from the trial will de-risk the next significant stage of exploration and development of Blackridge.
Nimble has specialist skills and equipment in both wet and in particular dry gravity gold processing technologies.
Dr Jones said that Impact had worked with Nimble for the past 18 months with full faith in the company as a capable operator.
“The use of their dry processing technology in the first instance also significantly decreases the environmental risk and the large water requirements for a wet processing plant,” he said.
“We look forward to working with them and starting the trial as quickly as practicable.”
Initially Nimble will trial a proprietary dry processing technology with a throughput capacity of about 90m3 per hour (about 150t per hour) and will work with Impact to determine optimal processing routes for the other two material types in the deposit which are not suitable for dry processing: wet clay-rich material and less oxidised to fresh bedrock.
If successful, the trial mining phase would be a major step in demonstrating the potential for a larger, open pit mine at Blackridge.
“Impact will also continue to assess other processing alternatives for other material types which are key targets for the larger scale potential at Blackridge,” Dr Jones said.