Manuka’s gold deliveries running hot

Manuka Resources will send its fourth load of gold to ABC Refinery tomorrow, hot on the heels of a delivery last Thursday.

The company now expects to dispatch gold to the refinery on a weekly basis as it processes run of mine materials and waste dump stockpiles from its Mt Boppy project in the Cobar Basin of central west New South Wales.

Manuka Resources (ASX:MKR) restarted gold production at Mt Boppy in mid-June after a preliminary evaluation demonstrated the economic viability of treating a screened product at the 100% owned Wonawinta plant.

“We’re very happy to announce that the key project metrics are in line with original project expectations, which is gold grade post screening greater than 1.7 grams per tonne (g/t),” executive chairman Dennis Karp said.

“Screening of the material is progressing in accordance with mine planning and processing of the screened material is recovering gold at more than 77%.

“Gold in circuit as at end July is over 1300oz and this gives us confidence that we can achieve the project targets of 350 to 450 ounces gold per week.”

Manuka’s production plan envisages three to four years of gold production of up to 25,000oz a year.

The ~1Mtpa+ Wonawinta mill can produce gold and silver. However the current strong gold price of almost $3,000 per ounce and superior economics of the Mt Boppy gold mine has led Manuka to prioritise gold over silver production for now.

Cash for Cobar Basin targets

The gold production will support exploration of priority targets identified in Manuka’s Strategic Exploration Review, which revealed substantial silver and gold resource upside along with high-grade base metals potential within the Cobar Basin tenements.

Prospects highlighted in the review released in February were additional high-value resources of 22-35 million ounces of silver at 40-50 grams per tonne (g/t), primarily from existing pits at Wonawinta.

Other standouts included potentially 250,000-530,000oz of gold at 2.5-3.8g/t, with Mt Boppy open pit and depth extensions, as well as the McKinnons & Pipeline Ridge prospects.

History of outperformance

Mt Boppy has previously been a lucrative operation for Manuka, beating various expectations before completion of the company’s first phase of mining in the final quarter of 2021.

During the previous mining campaign, it outperformed forecasts by over 70% with respect to ore milled, recovered ounces and sales revenue.

This article was developed in collaboration with Manuka Resources, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

 This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.