CRATER Gold Mining Limited has announced that stopping has commenced within central high grade block at the High Grade Zone gold project at Crater Mountain in Eastern Highlands. The company is expecting that the mining rate and the recovered gold grade will increase with stopping now underway. Development over the past year has delineated the HGZ from the 1960m level original audit up to surface at the 1990m level.
The mining focus has now switched from development and exploration to stopping of the high grade gold block from the 1960m level up. Recent gold production has been predominantly from development material on 1980m level including material beyond the limits of the central high grade block to confirm the interpretation of the zone and to ensure that high grade gold would not be left behind when stopping began. The company’s PNG general manager Richard Johnson said their aspirational objective of becoming a profitable, low cost, high margin gold producer is nearing fruition.
He said a third hammer mill has been installed which will allow continuous operation of two mills, increasing throughput going forward. “ Our focus remains on ramping up production to full capacity as mining focuses on the gold rich structure within the ‘central high grade’ block of the HGZ,” he said. While the current focus is on the HGZ mine, there remains potential to increase the JORC compliant resource of 24Mt at 1.0 g/t Au for 790,000 ounces1 at the nearby Mixing Zone project at Crater Mountain.
The mining focus has now switched from development and exploration to stopping of the high grade gold block from the 1960m level up. Recent gold production has been predominantly from development material on 1980m level including material beyond the limits of the central high grade block to confirm the interpretation of the zone and to ensure that high grade gold would not be left behind when stopping began. The company’s PNG general manager Richard Johnson said their aspirational objective of becoming a profitable, low cost, high margin gold producer is nearing fruition.
He said a third hammer mill has been installed which will allow continuous operation of two mills, increasing throughput going forward. “ Our focus remains on ramping up production to full capacity as mining focuses on the gold rich structure within the ‘central high grade’ block of the HGZ,” he said. While the current focus is on the HGZ mine, there remains potential to increase the JORC compliant resource of 24Mt at 1.0 g/t Au for 790,000 ounces1 at the nearby Mixing Zone project at Crater Mountain.