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United Kingdom

Cononish Mine

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Cononish Mine

Location: 3 km SW from Tyndrum, United Kingdom

Address:

57 Sloane Street, 1st Floor, Gabba Buidling, The Campus Office Park,
Johannesburg
South Africa

Contacts:

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Additional Resources for Suppliers & Investors

Categories

Summary

Mine TypeUnderground
StatusActive
Commodities
  • Gold
  • Silver
Mining Method
  • Longhole stoping
Backfill type ... Lock
Production Start... Lock
SnapshotCononish is a high-grade underground mining operation with a central processing plant, which produced gold concentrate for off-take and gold doré for the Scottish jewellery industry. At the end of September 2023, mining and production ceased. A care and maintenance programme has been put in place.

On Jan 2026, production has resumed at the Cononish gold mine near Tyndrum, marking a turnaround for Scotland’s only commercial gold mine following more than a year of inactivity.

Owners

SourceSource
CompanyInterestOwnership
Acrux Sorting Technology 10 % Indirect
Western Gold Exploration Ltd. 90 % Indirect
On 25 November 2025, Western Gold Exploration Ltd. announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Lorne Resources Ltd., has entered into a joint venture (JV) with Acrux Gold Limited, to explore for gold, silver, and critical minerals as part of the Caledonian Gold Project in central Scotland.

Acrux Gold was chosen for this joint venture as it is operating on Scotland’s only defined gold resource the Cononish Gold Project.

Under the new joint venture, all exploration and operational activities will be carried out by the JV company, Glen Lyon Limited.

In establishing the JV, Lorne Resources and Acrux Gold have entered into a shareholders’ agreement dated November 25, 2025 for Glen Lyon. That agreement defines governance, funding, and operational frameworks, with Lorne Resources holding 90% and Acrux Gold 10%.

SourceSource

Deposit type

  • Vein / narrow vein

Summary:

The Cononish deposit is hosted in a meta-sedimentary sequence of schists, pelites, quartzites, psammites and calcareous rocks of the Appin and Argyll Groups belonging to the Dalradian Supergroup.

The gold and silver mineralisation occurs within a steeply-dipping quartz vein which is up to 8.3m wide and has an average width of about 1.8m.

The vein system was emplaced during the late to post-tectonic late Silurian to early Devonian episode of granitoid intrusion in the Grampian Highlands. It shows both brittle and ductile style deformation and completely postdates metamorphism and associated Caledonian foliations. Quartz veining is associated with the Tyndrum Fault, one of a set of northeast southwest trending, left lateral, faults characterizing the Scottish Highlands.

Gold occurs as electrum (a natural gold / silver alloy) and some minor amounts of native (pure) gold; silver occurs additionally as minor tellurides. The gold/electrum is fine-grained, generally <100 µm in size. Visible gold up to 1,000 µm to 2,000 µm in size is rare. Assay data suggests that gold and silver is spatially associated with sulphides in the quartz vein. The main sulphide is pyrite, but galena, chalcopyrite and sphalerite occur in small amounts.

Although the vein outcrops on surface in limited areas, this will not be exposed by mining and little weathering and no supergene alteration has been encountered to date.

Reserves

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Mining Methods

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Heavy Mobile Equipment

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Comminution

Crushers and Mills

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Processing

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Commodity Production

At the end of September 2023, the Scotgold advised that mining and production had ceased. A care and maintenance program has been put in place.
CommodityProductUnits202320222021Avg. Annual (Projected)LOM (Projected)
Gold Metal in conc./ doré oz  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe
Silver Metal in conc./ doré oz  ....  Subscribe
* According to 2020 study.

Operational metrics

Metrics2022
Ore tonnes mined  ....  Subscribe
Tonnes milled  ....  Subscribe

Production Costs

Commodity production costs have not been reported.

Personnel

Mine Management

Job TitleNameProfileRef. Date
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Aug 14, 2025
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Aug 8, 2025
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Aug 14, 2025

Workforce

Aerial view:

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