"Following the acquisition of the Golden Range and Fields Find...

"Following the acquisition of the Golden Range and Fields Find Projects in February 2023, the Company’s focus is on its Western Australian Projects. The company believes that a strategic partner (or other structure) is the appropriate way forward to realise the inherent upside embedded within the Big Springs Project." (excerpt from the quarterly of Q3FY24).

Good. A clear statement. Ideally Amanda Buckingham will monetise all or maybe some of the ownership of Big Springs but in any case I like that the company makes it clear that it will be directing almost all of its spend towards the Golden Dragon property (aka Golden Corridor).

I have been thinking about the MRE that the company has at Golden Dragon, this being lifted from an announcement of 12 January 2023: "The current JORC (2012) Mineral Resource estimate for Golden Dragon is 19.2 Mt at 1.5 g/t Au for 945 koz contained gold (of which 461 koz at 1.6g/t Au sits in the Measured and Indicated classifications).

The existing Mineral Resources are spread across the Golden Dragon tenement package over more than 10 discrete deposits, and within various geological settings. While there are over 30,000drill holes in the Golden Dragon (plus Fields Find) drill hole database, the average drill hole depth at Golden Dragon is only 42m, with only a very limited number of holes designed to test fresh rock mineralisation."

From those descriptions I take it that all of the MRE ounces are in the top layer of dirt, and would be mostly oxide material that could easily be processed through the existing mill.

About the mill, from the 12 Jan 23 announcement: "Total historical gold production from Golden Dragon (and Fields Find) was 350 koz [from mostly oxide material], with the plant placed on care and maintenance in August 2019". From the 28 November 2022 presentation, slide 5: "includes a modern 156-person mining camp, 800ktpa oxide processing plant (on care and maintenance since 2019), TSF [tailing storage facilities], haul road and access to powerline (grid power) and water."

The current price of gold is about A$3,500 per ounce. The gold price in 2019 ranged from about A$1,800 to A$2,300. What was marginal when the mill was put into care and maintenance could now be highly profitable even from a modest operation using existing plant and infrastructure.

Warriedar has a very plausible and attractive plan to look at what lies underneath the line of worked out open pits along the Golden Corridor. But at this stage it is only a plan. However if they could get the existing mill up and running processing the existing near-surface resources then they will have a revenue stream to go along with their plan. At the very least it might put an end to the vicious diluting of value the company has inflicted on its shareholders since Amanda Buckingham took over as MD. And besides, what I think still separates the wheat from the chaff in WA gold projects is access to a mill, and Warriedar would be wheat, not chaff.

Now, I have not seen any indication from the company that it is even toying with the idea of re-activating the mill or is close to selling part or all of Big Springs. But I think both ideas are opportunities for the company to add some sizzle to their story. (if they stumbled on another Never Never that would help too ).