Brought to you by BULLS N’ BEARS
Penny Taylor
Auric Mining has delivered a major upgrade to its flagship Munda gold deposit near Widgiemooltha, 82 kilometres south of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. The revised resource has climbed 32 per cent to 4.20 million tonnes, grading 1.43 grams per tonne (g/t) gold for 192,000 ounces, despite depletion from recent mining.
The broader project inventory now stands at 4.26 million tonnes grading 1.42g/t gold for 194,000 ounces when remaining stockpiles are included. The upgrade follows a standout Starter Pit campaign that outperformed forecasts and sharpened the company’s understanding of how high-grade gold is distributed throughout the deposit.
Dense 5m-by-5m grade-control drilling completed during mining delivered a string of spectacular true-width hits, including 14m grading 115.67g/t gold, 10m grading 40.31g/t gold and 6m grading 66.44g/t gold.
The Starter Pit also smashed production expectations. Auric recovered 8886 ounces of gold against a budgeted 6100 ounces and built a further 2900-ounce stockpile for future processing.
‘Munda continues to exceed all our expectations. It continues to develop and is now a very sizeable gold resource and asset.’
Auric Mining managing director Mark English
Production reconciliation added further weight to the upgrade. Mining delivered higher grades and about eight per cent more contained gold than the updated block model predicted, reinforcing confidence in the revised estimate.
The uplift was not driven by new drilling. The Starter Pit was originally designed as a proof-of-concept operation to test the resource model and improve Auric’s understanding of the mineralisation.
Munda hosts a broad disseminated gold system developed mainly within basalt units and controlled by the intersection of a southeast-dipping fault or shear and volcanic layering. Mining revealed rare high-grade pockets contribute more strongly to mineable grades than previously modelled, prompting a less conservative treatment of high-grade samples in the new estimate.
The revised model also reflects a dramatically stronger gold market. Auric’s latest resource is constrained within a pit shell generated at a gold price of A$7,000 per ounce, compared with A$3,200 per ounce used in the 2024 estimate.
The resulting pit stretches almost one kilometre along strike, reaches up to 400m in width and extends to a depth of 200m. Notably, the deposit remains open along strike and at depth, while mining performance continues to suggest the updated estimate remains conservative.
Auric Mining managing director Mark English said: “The Starter Pit enabled us to build our knowledge and experience in our self-mining capability and generate substantial cash reserves. These cash reserves will allow us to progress the greater Munda and Burbanks operation and transform the Company into a fully integrated mining house.”
The result slots neatly into Auric’s broader strategy of becoming a fully integrated gold producer. The company has already generated substantial cash from Munda and its highly profitable Jeffreys Find operation, while recent executive hires have strengthened its mine-to-mill capability.
Auric now boasts a growing resource base, strong cash reserves of almost $44 million, and a simple processing plan to pair its mining operations with owner-operated processing.
At the centre of that ambition is its 100 per cent-owned Burbanks processing plant just south of Coolgardie and 70 kilometres north of Munda in the heart of the Coolgardie-Widgiemooltha gold corridor. The company aims to refurbish and potentially expand the facility from 180,000 to 500,000 tonnes per annum, reducing reliance on third-party processors and capturing more value from every ounce produced.
Next up is further drilling at Munda aimed at both resource growth and infill conversion. Planning is already underway to test extensions beyond the current resource envelope.
A scoping study is also underway to assess the combined development of a larger Munda open-pit and the Burbanks processing facility, particularly since the company sees additional scope to access deeper, high-grade lodes beneath the pit through underground mining.
Munda has become the golden gift that keeps on giving for Auric. With the resource still open, drilling set to resume and a company-owned mill waiting in the wings, the project is increasingly shaping as the foundation stone of a much larger WA gold business.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au
