Gruyere remains on track for first gold as Downer mobilises at site

According to Mining News Pro -The Gruyere gold project, around 200km from Laverton, Western Australia, is a 50:50 joint venture (JV) between Gold Road and Gold Fields subsidiary Gruyere Mining Company.

One of the highest-grade undeveloped gold projects in Australia, Gruyere hosts a JORC 2012 mineral resource of 144Mt at 1.3g/t for 5.9Moz of contained gold and is expected to produce between 170,000–230,000oz of gold in the 2019 calendar year.

The project is now employing over 630 workers to meet the June 2019 quarter completion target, a slight delay to original March 2019 quarter completion target that Gold Road attributed to inclement weather conditions.

As of September 30, the project’s engineering was 96 per cent complete, the construction was 71 per cent complete and construction of the process plant and associated infrastructure was 57 per cent complete.

Gold Road managing director and chief executive officer Duncan Gibbs said he looked forward to providing future updates on the project’s development in the run up to first gold.

In the September quarter, concrete foundations works and CIL steel tank construction at the project were completed as was the installation of the SAG and ball mill shells, ends and trunnions.

Contractor MACA also completed the first stage of run-of-mine (ROM) pad work, which included 221,000 cubic metres of fill material.

Mining services provider Downer has also started mobilising a mining fleet to commence operations in November for a March 2019 first ore target; the services company secured a five-year contract at Gruyere in December last year.

Gold Fields executive vice president, Australia, Stuart Mathews also commented on the progress at Gruyere, saying the company had “welcomed the opportunity to recently showcase the quality of the project to a broad group of stakeholders”.