Update2 Aug 2025 06:34
Recent Satellite images are not showing big changes to Stage 7 stripping operation. I believe they are stripping the steep north-west benching which would be difficult to pick up from these images.
The new waste mound between 2 existing mounds to the north east of the pit is filling up fast . This can be seen quite clearly on the images.
Where is this waste rock coming from?
Let’s look at the underground development drives, the average monthly advance is around 450m, so that’s around 15m/day with a size of around 5x5m would give 1,150 tons/day or 400,000 tons pa.
That sort of tonnage is large and would be mainly coming from the WDD as there looks like 2 jumbo’s working on that drive. This can be seen in the image from the RNS. Lots of other drives are happening and planned for the Lower Underground mine, the Rey and the ESC.
The 6m ton annual capability of the hoist is still well under utilised. Once the planned drives are completed these jumbos’ could be utilised on the stoping operations on the ESC. There’s multiple areas there that can start straight away. The high grades there and higher ore feed should alleviate the need to use the stockpiles. The ESC material will be trucked out.
The hoist won’t be utilised to its capacity till the WDD comes on stream in a couple of years so the ESC is a priority at the moment.
The cyclone effect on Stage 2 was the critical event in Q4 which effectively stopped the production from which was the main contributor to the Q3 production. A big hit as now stage 7 became a priority but there’s a lot of waste stripping there before any major contribution can be achieved. There was a mention that this stripping procedure had accelerated 3x in the quarter.
Stage 2 is/was hampered by the moving of the pumping system of the WDD to a different location away from this zone. This was still going on when the analysts were at Telfer, the photo with the Stage 7 blasting , clearly showed working around the pump removal and the 600m extract hose going over the Stage 7 benching. It’s big equipment so will take time and a new bore hole. Stage 2 has some high grade zones and kept Q3 grades up, we need it to come back on line asap.
Stage 2 is shown on the RNS to have a new pit shell boundary viability of A$4,500 up from A$3,450 the size of the pit is going to be huge there’s vast tonnages to come out. Some of this ore will be waste stripping as the benching needs to be moved back and effects some of the waste mounds at surface level.
The new pit shell viability now gives pit 10 and 11 more potential and could make the 3 pits that make up the West Dome the same size as the Main Dome. Giving assurances to be able to buy a new fleet of trucks given the time it will take to do all this work.
Higher gold prices could eventually expand that pit shell further but a lot more drilling will be required and that is planned.
Sign In
Follow the stocks
