The Mount Wright deposit is a 200m long, 60m wide vertical breccia pipe characterized by a sequence of structurally controlled hydrothermal breccias and Rhyolite Intrusions within the Ordovician Millaroo Granite. Mineralisation (approx. 305 Ma) occurred subsequent to but essentially coeval with the final Rhyolite brecciation event and is characterized by pyrite-marcasite veining and intense sericite alteration. The pipe itself is weakly mineralised at surface with grades increasing around 500-800m depth. The ore body is a vertically dipping rhyolite breccia pipe hosted within granite and granodiorite. Development of the underground mine began in 2006.

In September 2016, Resolute published the Ravenswood Expansion Plan Study. The Ravenswood expansion project (REP) is primarily focused on the closure of Mt Wright.

The focus of the REP will be the Sarsfield, Nolans and Buck Reef West gold deposits, all of which have been mined previously. The deposits are hosted by diorite intrusives in the Silurian to Devonian aged Jessop’s Creek Tonalite Complex in the Ravenswood Batholith. In the Project area the Tonalite Complex includes units of diorite, quartz diorite and minor gabbro. Deposit types include sulphide quartz shear lodes (Buck Reef West and Sarsfield), narrow high grade veins (Buck Reef West and Sarsfield) and large quartz-sulphide vein stock-works (Sarsfield, Nolans and Nolans East).

Until 2016, ore for the Ravenswood operations was sourced primarily from the Mt Wright underground mine using the unique mining method of sublevel shrinkage with continuous fill, a caving technique successfully pioneered by the Resolute team. In September 2016, Resolute published the Ravenswood Expansion Plan Study. The Ravenswood expansion project (REP) is primarily focused on the closure of Mt Wright and completion of open pit operations at Nolans East over the next two years, followed by a move towards mining of the newer open pit Buck Reef West in 2020 and Sarsfield by 2025.

At Ravenswood, FY19 saw the completion of underground operations at the Mt Wright Underground Mine (Mt Wright), after life-of-mine production of over 1Moz and place Mt Wright on care and maintenance on 31 October 2019.

Mining of the Nolans East open pit commenced in August 2016 and to be completed in September 2018, with processing of stockpiled ore supplemented by existing low-grade stocks to the end of 2019.

The REP comprises mining operations in three separate open pits which include:
· Nolans East: A small pit is being developed at the eastern end of the present Nolans pit which involves a cutback of the eastern and northern walls
· Sarsfield: A cutback of the main Sarsfield open pit
· Buck Reef West: Excavation of new open pit. The area has previously been the subject of small scale underground and open pit mining.

The mining operations required for the development of the open pits comprise two
separate components:

· Dredging of tailings from the Sarsfield pit; and
· Conventional drill and blast, load and haul operations at Nolans East, Sarsfield and Buck Reef West.

The processing plant is currently configured for processing 2.8Mtpa of ore using three-stage crushing, SAG and ball milling and carbon-in pulp processing with a gravity circuit for recovery of free gold.

Processing plant to be upgraded to 3.2Mtpa (currently 2.8Mtpa) by the start of 2020. Expansion of the Nolans processing plant to 5.0Mtpa in FY24.

Test work and historical performance has demonstrated that the ore is amenable to beneficiation through the rejection of a “nominal” 50mm oversize after secondary crushing. Previous owners ran two extensive successful pilot programmes and Resolute has recently replicated this characteristic through the beneficiation of low grade stockpiles on site. At the current gold price and operating costs, it is viable to beneficiate material between 0.3 – 0.7g/t ore from Sarsfield and potentially Nolans East and Buck Reef West.

The Sarsfield, Nolans East and Buck Reef West ore all exhibit similar metallurgical characte ........