REZ ticks off third gold production round as price heads north

REZ is three rounds into production at its Granny Venn gold mine in WA, and gearing up for a fourth, as the price of the safe haven metal gets ever closer to its August 2020 record.

Resources & Energy Group (ASX:REZ) and partner BM Mining have completed a third milling campaign, producing 97.3g of gold dore, or around 2,847oz of gold.

At the same time, the gold price this week touched $US2,000/oz, which is a very sweet $2,703/oz in REZ’s home currency of Aussie dollars.

This is not too far off gold’s historic high of roughly US$2,075 reached in August 2020. Even at today’s Aussie dollar gold price of around $2,600, REZ and BM Mining would still be bringing in a cool $7.4m before costs for the month-long campaign.

And this campaign included the best ore so far from Granny Venn, with 29,000 tonnes at an estimated grade of 2.37 grams per tonne (g/t) processed at St Barbara’s Gwalia plant.

The gold bars are now on their way to the Perth Mint for reconciliation, which will provide REZ with a more accurate grade.

The completion of this third campaign also marks the completion of waste and ore mining activities at the Granny Venn cutback.

Operations are now focused on waste dump profiling, and haulage of ROM stocks to the Lakewood gold mill.

REZ said 10,000 tonnes had already been hauled to the mill as of April 15.

The remaining ROM stocks, estimated to be about 20,000-25,000 tonnes, are in the process of being trucked to Lakewood for the fourth and final production round, scheduled to begin in early May.

Foot on the gas at East Menzies

While BM Mining is checking off the boxes for the final production campaign, REZ is stepping up exploration across the broader East Menzies project, which is proving to be more than just a gold project.

REZ previously revealed it had uncovered nickel sulphides at the project, but in late March drilling also delivered shallow zones of mineralisation that included the valuable and highly-sought-after green metals cobalt and platinum group elements.

The company is continuing drilling within the Granny Venn, Maranoa, and Springfield prospects and has begun planning for a scout program at the Cock Robin target.

REZ has also started reprocessing existing electromagnetic (EM) data at Springfield and is looking into conducting a moving loop EM survey at the prospect.

Over at Gigante Grande, which has shown early signs it could be a tier one deposit with past drilling having already provided evidence of a very large vein and shear-hosted gold system, heritage surveys are set to begin in late April.

Successful completion of the heritage surveys will unlock 2,000 hectares of prospective ground, allowing REZ to advance exploration through the testing of mineralisation to the north and south of its existing boundaries.

This article was developed in collaboration with Resources & Energy Group, 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.