Auric banks $10.8m money from first WA Munda gold run | USAEMALL.com

Auric Mining has delivered a dazzling first strike from its Munda gold mine near Widgiemooltha, raking in $16.85 million in gold sales and banking $10.82 million in cold, hard cash after costs.

The first mining campaign from the company’s starter pit at Munda, which finished two weeks ago, saw 57,900 tonnes of ore trucked to Black Cat Syndicate’s Lakewood Mill in Kalgoorlie for a final tally of 2718 ounces of gold.

The processed ore clocked in at a tidy head grade of 1.61 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, with the mill running at an impressive 90.67 per cent recovery rate. Even better, Auric pocketed an average of $6200 an ounce for the gold, a number that speaks to both the booming gold price and what the company says is a highly efficient Munda-Lakewood toll-treating partnership.

Auric says the early payday from the first stage has not only beaten market expectations, it also catapults the company onto the radar as one of Western Australia’s newest high-margin gold producers.

With 6100 ounces forecast to be produced from the starter pit by February and all-in sustaining costs coming in at a lean $2635 an ounce, Auric’s opening act at Munda has proved a boon. With gold still on the boil, the margin speaks for itself.

The original model, which was based on a gold price of just $3500 an ounce, now look completely undercooked. Those early assumptions forecast the starter pit to generate $5.3 million in free cashflow across stages one and two and yet the first campaign has almost doubled that number. Kalgoorlie-based MineComp, which modelled the starter pit, has since made some savvy changes to its design, which could now deliver even more ore at the base of the pit.

What happens next could be even bigger. Auric has lined up a hefty 65,000 tonnes of ore for its second milling campaign at Lakewood in mid-January. The run is estimated to produce up to 3382 ounces of gold and sets the stage for another deluge of cash if the ore performs anything like the first batch.

The final reconciliation of campaign one confirms an outstanding result for Auric. These results reinforce the quality of the Munda orebody and validate our development strategy as we prepare for campaign two milling in January 2026.

Following completion of the second processing campaign, Auric plans to kick off preparations for a bigger prize at the company’s Munda Main Pit. Workflow will include detailed design, scheduling and economic analysis. Using a cut-off grade of 0.5g/t gold, the Munda Pit hosts 3.65 million tonnes grading 1.23g/t gold for 145,000 ounces of gold.

However, with a booming gold price – now trading at more than A$6000 per ounce – Minecomp have hinted by incorporating a lower cut-off to 0.2 g/t gold the indicated and inferred resource would swell to 189,000 ounces gold.

When the company ran a scoping study on the Main pit in 2023, its modelling used a gold price of just A$2600 per ounce to forecast a production of 1.72 million tonnes grading 2.2 g/t gold for 117,000 ounces.

Elsewhere, Auric has been busy expanding its gold exploration footprint in the region and picking up processing infrastructure in a bid to become a long-term gold producer.

First off, the company completed a deal to buy the historic Burbanks gold processing plant just south of Coolgardie in September for $4.4m. The facility, which has been closed since 2019, is within trucking distance of existing Auric gold resources.

Burbanks is a primary crushing, grinding and carbon-in-leach (CIL) facility with a capacity of 180,000 tonnes per annum. The acquisition includes all related assets, permits, licences and infrastructure from private vendors, including access to power, water and tailings dams.

Auric plans to refurbish the plant and at the same time increase the tonnage capacity. Several commercial options exist for Auric, including creating its own third-party toll treatment facility once the plant is up and running.

Last month, Auric also picked up the Lindsay’s gold project which includes four key tenements at Gindalbie, 60kms northeast of Kalgoorlie. The prize sitting within those grounds is the Parrot Feathers open pit, which was partially mined for just 6153 ounces before previous owner KalNorth walked away in the 2013 gold slump. It offers Auric a unique and mining ready opportunity to leverage existing infrastructure and capitalise on exceptionally strong gold prices.

Auric is positioning itself as a key player in Western Australia’s gold sector by acquiring cost-effective assets, building a portfolio of strategic tenements and securing processing solutions for ore from the Munda and Lindsay’s projects. With gold prices surging, the company is poised for significant growth and profitability across the Western Australian gold sector.

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