Wiluna Mining Corporation has spent the last 18 months drilling over 175,000m de-risking and advancing the new Wiluna gold mine towards production in December this year – and the hard work is paying off.

The company just announced the mineral resource update to 36 million tonnes at 3.90g/t for 4.51 million ounces, and a 28% increase in the measured and indicated resource by 28% to 2.73 million ounces at 4.46g/t.

This includes the Wiluna deposits (Wiluna Mining Centre), as well as the Matilda, Lake Way and Galaxy deposits which contributed a combined 332,000 ounces at 1.93g/t to the  total MRE – along with stockpiles, and tailings available for retreatment contributing a combined 685,000 ounces at 0.58g/t.

Wiluna Mining Corporation (ASX:WMC) says the indicated resource increase affirms its strategy of drilling to upgrade resources and reserves through systematic infill drilling at high-grade (>5g/t) initial mining areas to support near-term production.

 

Stands up well to its peers

The company is confident that Wiluna compares favourably with other large-scale, high-grade gold mining and development projects in the premier gold mining district of Western Australia, including:

WMC MRE
Mineral resource coloured by category, showing significant Indicated zones adjacent to the 2020 ore reserves; potential for additional Ore Reserves to be defined based on the updated MRE.

 

Production by December, gold concentrate by January

Stockpiles of around 100,000 tonnes of development ore are already on surface ready for processing through the new concentrator in December – with gold concentrate expected from January 2022.

A new ore reserve statement is underway as part of the Stage 2 feasibility study and is due for completion in March 2022, ahead of commercial production of 120,000 ounces per year from the new sulphide underground mine by June 2022.

WMC concentrator
Wiluna Mining concentrator 90% complete and to be commissioned in December 2021 with existing plant in the background.

 

Future growth potential

The company is planning further expansion to more than 250,000 ounces in FY 2024, and said that further drilling is expected to provide considerable opportunities for growth – with the growing high-grade gold endowment of 15,000 ounces per vertical metre over three main gold structures with a combined strike length of approximately 10km.

Further targets for indicated resource conversion and mine plan extensions include the South Mine area and the West Mine area.

 

 

Wiluna Mining Corp share price today:

 

This article was developed in collaboration with Wiluna Mining Corporation Ltd, 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.