Redpath Australia says it has been awarded a contract to carry out underground mining services at Silver Lake Resources’ Rothsay gold project, in Western Australia.
The contract includes portal and decline development, which is due to commence in the September quarter of 2020, according to the company.
Rothsay is within the Warriedar Greenstone gold belt of the Yalgoo Goldfield in the Southern Murchison Region of Western Australia. The current project plan would see mineralised ore extracted from narrow sub-vertical structures, according to Redpath.
“Rothsay has a rich mining history dating back to the discovery of gold in 1894 and including several phases of mining, most recently by Metana Minerals in the early 1990s,” it said.
Redpath Managing Director, Gavin Ramage, said: “We are looking forward to working with the Silver Lake Resources team in increasing value for their shareholders through safe and efficient delivery of underground mining services.”
In its March quarter results, Silver Lake Resources said pre-development activities had continued at Rothsay, including the commencement of the tendering process for key construction and operational contracts.
It said it expected Rothsay ore to form part of the Deflector mine feed from the September quarter of 2022, “in parallel with the Deflector plant upgrade”.
When the company announced plans to acquire Egan Street Resources – thereby adding Rothsay to its books – last year, it said Rothsay would bring an additional 454,000 oz of gold JORC resources and 200,000 oz of gold reserves to its portfolio.
It also said the addition of Rothsay provided it with a near-term development opportunity to introduce a new high-grade ore source to an upgraded Deflector processing facility.
The Deflector gold-copper mine is around 85 km from Rothsay, and produced first gold in May 2016.
A shallow narrow vein, high-grade gold and copper underground mine, Deflector also has a fit-for-purpose processing facility to enable recovery of gold from a gravity circuit, prior to the production of a copper-gold concentrate via flotation.