Horizon pours first Crown Jewel gold in 100 years

This follows the company completing all mining and site expenses during the September quarter, six weeks ahead of schedule.

During back to back mining campaigns, Horizon processed around 45,000 tonnes from the Crown Jewel and Regal West trial pits with expected grades of 1.6 to 2 grams per tonne of gold.

This was the first gold poured from the Crown Jewel deposit in more than 100 years.

Completion of the toll milling at Boorara and subsequent mine to mill reconciliations will enable Horizon to update its mineral resource during the March quarter of 2021.

This will enable updated mine optimisation and design to complete a maiden ore reserve in the June quarter of 2021 as part of a consolidated feasibility study and initial mine development plan.

The aim of the trial mining and toll milling is to verify tonnage and grade uplift potential when compared to the global resource model.

So far, the results unearthed a strong potential from the site and will form the updated estimates and studies ahead of development decisions for constructing a processing facility at Boorara.

Managing director Jon Price said with the mining and site production costs fully expensed, the company is looking forward to a strong cash flow from the final two milling campaigns and growing Horizon’s healthy financial position.

“In the last six months we have been mining, milling, drilling, consolidating and evaluating to support the larger scale development and production profile,” Price said.

“Boorara will provide the base load feed and mill site and the satellite projects including Crake, Teal, Rose Hill and now Kalpini are being assessed to complement Boorara in the initial five year production profile.”