Kin Mining has commenced preliminary site works at its Lewis Trial Mining operation in Western Australia, following the successful optimisation of a new open pit, and the completion of a haul road.
The Department of Mines and Petroleum (DMP) approved the Lewis Trial Mining proposal, allowing Kin Mining to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding with Advanced Mining & Civil, which will see the latter providing open cut mining and civil earthmoving activities at the Lewis site.
Kin Mining has also appointed a mining engineer and mine geologist to manage the project.
With the completion of the haul road (L37/195) within the Cardinia area, the company has started procuring key infrastructure for the mine.
The pit optimisation efforts at the Lewis Trial Mine site resulted in an adjustment in the input cost parameters for the pit design. The new parameters reflect current mining costs, processing costs, gold price, and expected gold recoveries.
According to Kin Mining, the revised inputs resulted in a more tightly constrained pit design that eliminates over 30% of the waste from previous pit designs, generating a more economically robust mine schedule.
The optimised pit design also allows vat leach processing, resulting in lower processing costs. The revised costs enable a lower cut-off grade to be applied to the ore zone, resulting in more available ore tonnes to be accessed within a smaller pit design.
Kin Mining says it is using the Lewis Trial Mining Operation to improve its understanding of the economic viability of the Bruno-Lewis supergene ore, which is estimated to hold 120,000 oz of gold.
With the bulk of the resource being contained 20 to 50 m below the surface, and the ore being a free dig clay that does not require costly drilling and blasting, Kin Mining says the supergene ore will be a lost cost operation.
According to Kin Mining managing director Trevor Dixon, the Lewis Trial Mining operation, with its low cost, will be cash-positive, helping the company become a gold producer and generate cash flow. More engineering and subcontract opportunities can be anticipated as the cash from these operations enable the junior miner to continue feasibility and drilling works.
“The trial mine will answer fundamental questions about the properties of the supergene ore that we will be able to incorporate into the larger Cardinia Resource. This is an exciting time and places the company closer to our ultimate goal of becoming a gold producer,” Dixon said.