Australian miner Lunnon Metals has reached an agreement with St Ives Gold Mining, a subsidiary of Gold Fields, to modify St Ives’ existing pre-emption rights on future gold material from the Lady Herial deposit in Western Australia.
This agreement paves the way for exclusive negotiations regarding the sale of material from Lady Herial for treatment at St Ives’ Lefroy gold plant.
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The Lefroy gold plant is located 7km along an existing haulage route to the north of the Lady Herial deposit.
The plant’s facilities include primary crushing, milling, gravity and leach circuits, and a tailings storage facility. It treats ore from several mines at a rate of approximately four million tonnes per annum (mtpa).
Under the terms of the agreement, Lunnon Metals will deliver a mineral resource estimate and metallurgical test work to St Ives, followed by a 90-day period to agree on sale and purchase terms.
If an agreement with St Ives is not reached within this time frame, Lunnon Metals can negotiate with other parties for a further 120 days.
If no external agreement is reached, discussions with St Ives will resume for another 90 days.
The high Australian dollar gold price environment, along with granted mining leases and infrastructure in the region, positions Lunnon Metals in an advantageous position.
Lunnon Metals managing director Edmund Ainscough said: “We would like to thank Gold Fields for agreeing to work collaboratively with us as we seek to secure the future treatment of our exciting, high-grade Lady Herial gold deposit.
“The Lefroy gold plant is without doubt the most efficient and most logical destination for any future material and we look forward to negotiating mutually beneficial terms with Gold Fields.”
Recent metallurgical test work on material from the 2024 drill programme has shown high gold recoveries, averaging 95%, across various grades.
Lunnon Metals and St Ives plan to explore the potential for even higher recoveries by incorporating a gravity separation step in future test work.
In October 2024, Gold Fields selected Fleet Space Technologies’ ExoSphere to improve its exploration efforts at the Salares Norte project in northern Chile.
