Silver Lake development pipeline targets more low-cost ounces

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Western Australian gold producer and explorer Silver Lake, which met its gold sales guidance for 2016, would continue to invest in exploration in the “fertile gold fields” of the Mount Monger area.

The company on Friday announced a A$14-million exploration budget for the 2017 financial year, following on the success of its 2016 exploration programme, which yielded significant results across all stages of the exploration pipeline.

“We will make another significant investment in exploration over the next 12 months to bring more low-cost ounces into our development pipeline, as we did in the 2016 financial year,” said MD Luke Tonkin.

Of the 2017 budget, 35% of the in-ground exploration would be directed to resource definition to sustain current operations, while the balance would be directed to multiple growth exploration targets.

Tonkin said that Silver Lake’s strategy to return its focus to its core Mount Monger operation, near Kalgoorlie, had paid off in the 2016 financial year, as the operation generated gold sales of 132 400 oz, compared with 121 999 oz in 2015.

A number of new ore sources were introduced at Mount Monger, including the Lucky Bay and Santa openpits. Exploration and development work had also brought new, lower cost ore sources into the 2017 production schedule.

Silver Lake stated that gold would be produced from the Imperial/Majestic openpits from the first quarter of the new financial year and that the recently approved Maxwells underground mine would contribute about 15 000 oz of production in the 2017 financial year.

The company had set a gold sales guidance of 135 000 oz to 145 000 oz for the 2017 financial year.