Alkane Resources has received approval from the government of New South Wales, Australia, for development of an exploration drive from the existing Wyoming One underground mine at its Tomingley gold operations to the Roswell and San Antonio deposits, approximately 4 kilometers (km) south of the mine.
Alkane considers the drive to be an important milestone toward a future potential underground mine at Roswell and San Antonio that could be developed independently of an open-cut operation. The exploration drive will be sized such that it could also accommodate production in the future.
Alkane Managing Director Nic Earner said, “Alkane has the equipment purchased, personnel recruited, and land acquired to allow this development to proceed, and we will now incorporate the timing of the drive development into the Tomingley Gold Operations’ budget schedules, as well as our regional exploration plans.
“Given the prospectivity of the region around our existing operations, this approval provides Alkane with all the exploration and, in time, production options, to extend the life of mine at Tomingley well into the future.”
The Tomingley gold project covers an area of approximately 440 km2. Over the past two years, Alkane has conducted an extensive regional exploration program with the objective of defining additional resources that have the potential to be mined either via open pit or underground operations and fed to the Tomingley processing facility.
The exploration program has yielded broad, shallow, high-grade intercepts that demonstrate potential for material project life extension in excess of 10 years and show that a return to open-pit mining and/or underground extension is possible with appropriate resource confirmation, landholder agreement, and regulatory approvals.
(alkane.com.au)
