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Australia

Mt Gibson Project

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Overview

Mine TypeOpen Pit
StagePermitting
Commodities
  • Gold
Mine Life... Lock
SnapshotThe updated pre-feasibility study, completed in November 2024, reaffirmed Mt Gibson Gold Project (MGGP) as a large-scale project with projected annual gold production exceeding 150,000 ounces for the first 15 years of production.

During the 2024 year, the installation of 400-room accommodation units and associated infrastructure buildings required for the operation commenced. Tenders were issued for mining services, power supply and process plant design contracts with a number of site visits conducted for potential service providers.

Capricorn’s strategy is to expedite the accommodation village construction, project design and long lead purchasing in parallel with progressive receipt of development and environmental permits where it is expected to be advantageous to the ultimate development schedule and cost to do so.
Latest NewsCapricorn Metals: Mt Gibson ore reserve soars     November 18, 2024

Owners

SourceSource
CompanyInterestOwnership
Capricorn Metals Ltd. 100 % Indirect
Capricorn is the 100% beneficial owner of mining tenure that fully encompass the Mt Gibson deposit and all areas required for project infrastructure.

The resource is located across mining tenements held by wholly-owned Capricorn subsidiaries METROVEX PTY LTD and CRIMSON METALS PTY LTD.

Contractors

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Deposit type

  • Banded iron formation hosted
  • Laterite
  • Hydrothermal
  • Vein / narrow vein

Summary:

The Mt Gibson Gold Project tenements are located at the southern extremity of the Retaliation Greenstone Belt, in the SW portion of the Yalgoo-Singleton Greenstone Belt in the Murchison Province of the Yilgarn Craton. The tenements are mostly covered by a veneer of alluvial quartz sands and laterite gravels, with sporadic greenstone subcrop and outcrop, increasingly exposed in the north of the project area. The mineralised laterite gravels are situated slightly down-slope from the lode deposits on the Gibson trend. Regionally, the greenstone belt has been metamorphosed to middle amphibolite facies and hosts a number of Au-Cu deposits and prospects, including Golden Grove, 90km to the northwest of Mt.Gibson.

The deposit has been defined by drilling over an 8km strike length and as deep as 950m down-dip where it is still mineralised and open down-dip. The mineralised shoots are present in drilling as broad zones up to 50m wide and are continuous down plunge. A large laterite and oxide weathering zone is developed over the primary geology and this is mineralised in the near surface, up-dip position of the main shoots of primary mineralisation. A thin veneer of transported sand and colluvium soil covers the deposit and is typically less than 6m thick, the transition/fresh rock boundary is about 40 to 60m below surface.

The lode style mineralisation at Mt. Gibson is predominantly hosted by three main trends:

The Gibson Trend
The majority of the known and mined mineralisation is hosted by this trend. It is hypothesised to have originally been a gold-copper-zinc rich Volcanogenic Hosted Massive Sulphide (VHMS) deposit that has been overprinted by a later hydrothermal gold mineralising event. This mineralised shear zone has an arcuate north-south to northeasterly strike (trending more north-easterly in the north) and extends for more than seven kilometres from the southern granite contact to beyond the Hornet ore body.

The so-called “Mine Sequence” is around 400 metres wide and consists of a parcel of sheared, metamorphosed and chlorite-biotite-muscovite altered mafic volcanics. Numerous felsic porphyries intrude the Mine Sequence. Mineralisation is hosted within multiple sets of elongate lodes with strong strike continuity, which anastomose and pinch-swell along strike and to depth. The main lode systems include Hornet, Enterprise, Orion and S2.

The Taurus Trend
The north-westerly trending Taurus Trend lies west of and diagonal to the Gibson Trend. Mineralisation is intimately associated with an apparently continuous felsic unit emplaced into the northwest trending shear and was discovered late in the life of the mining operation. It is characterised by discontinuous ore bodies, and strongly mineralised quartz-sulphide veining. The ore bodies on this trend include Sheldon and Wombat which, although not as continuous in strike as the ore bodies on the Gibson Trend, show a higher gold tenor.

The Highway Trend
The Highway Trend is a northeast trending shear zone, hosted by a mafic sequence in the western terrain, 11km northwest of the main mining area. This trend hosts the Highway ore body, and the Phoenix and Aquarius Prospects. It shares many of the characteristics of the Gibson trend, but it appears to lack the VHMS mineralising event and has generally been regarded as a predominantly low-grade system, although work from previous explores suggest it may have greater persistence and significance than previously thought and hence justifies further attention. The project area also hosts a number of BIF and quartz-hosted small mineral occurrences including Paynes-Crusoe and MacDonald’s Find.

Dimensions
The main laterite zone extends 3000m along strike and 500m across. It ranges from 2m to 8m in vertical thickness, although a large portion of the laterite Resource is depleted by historical mining and backfilled with waste.

The primary mineralisation extends below the laterite zone for a further vertical depth of 950m.

The transition/fresh rock boundary is about 40 to 60m below surface. The primary mineralisation has 3 main sub-parallel zones and several smaller zones. Overall these zones extend for 8000m along strike (N-S) and up to 1000m across.

HLP: The MGGP heap leach pad wireframe has been created using the topographic surface and drillhole logging to interpret the base. The heap leach pad extends 500m along strike and 500m across, and is 37m high.

Reserves

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Mining Methods

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Comminution

Crushers and Mills

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Processing

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Production

Gold production averages 150,000 ounces per annum for the first 15 years of operations and 140,000 ounces per annum for the LOM including two years of low-grade stockpile processing after mining ceases.

Gold production averages 155,000 ounces per annum for the first 9 years of operations and 142,000 ounces per annum for the LOM.
CommodityUnitsAvg. AnnualLOM
Gold koz 1502,380
All production numbers are expressed as metal in doré.

Operational metrics

Metrics
Hourly processing rate  ....  Subscribe
Annual ore mining rate  ....  Subscribe
Annual processing capacity  ....  Subscribe
Stripping / waste ratio  ....  Subscribe
Waste tonnes, LOM  ....  Subscribe
Ore tonnes mined, LOM  ....  Subscribe
Total tonnes mined, LOM  ....  Subscribe
Tonnes processed, LOM  ....  Subscribe
* According to 2024 study.

Production Costs

CommodityUnitsAverage
Cash costs Gold AUD  ....  Subscribe
All-in sustaining costs (AISC) Gold AUD  ....  Subscribe
Assumed price Gold AUD  ....  Subscribe
* According to 2024 study / presentation.

Operating Costs

CurrencyAverage
OP mining costs ($/t milled) AUD  ....  Subscribe
Processing costs ($/t milled) AUD  ....  Subscribe
G&A ($/t milled) AUD  ....  Subscribe
Total operating costs ($/t milled) AUD  ....  Subscribe
* According to 2024 study.

Project Costs

MetricsUnitsLOM Total
Pre-Production capital costs $M AUD  ......  Subscribe
OP OpEx $M AUD  ......  Subscribe
Processing OpEx $M AUD 1,483
G&A costs $M AUD 159
Total OpEx $M AUD  ......  Subscribe
Gross revenue (LOM) $M AUD  ......  Subscribe
Pre-tax Cash Flow (LOM) $M AUD  ......  Subscribe
Pre-tax NPV @ 5% $M AUD  ......  Subscribe
Pre-tax payback period, years  ......  Subscribe

Heavy Mobile Equipment

Fleet data has not been reported.

Personnel

Mine Management

Job TitleNameProfileRef. Date
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Dec 20, 2024
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Dec 20, 2024
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Dec 20, 2024

Aerial view:

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