"Leveraging off the sunk capital in the Challenger mill in the...

"Leveraging off the sunk capital in the Challenger mill in the first instance to achieve a rerating of its market cap and credit status will be Barton’s first step ahead of the main event – the development of the planned 130,000oz a year Tunkillia project, 200km from Challenger, as a standalone project.

The two-step plan will initially involve a low-cost return of the Challenger mill (it’s the only one in the region) to production from open-cut ore sources, stockpiles and regional deposits like Tarcoola.

It is not going to be big, say 20,000oz a year.

But it doesn’t need to be big in volume terms to generate lots of free cashflow thanks to the spectacular rise in the Aussie gold price to more than $4600/oz. That compares with gold’s CY2024 average of $3620/oz and the CY2023 average of $2940/oz.

Achieving producer status by returning Challenger to production will kick off the equity and credit rerating which Barton can then leverage off to give the development of Tunkillia some real momentum, not that the gold price surge hasn’t done that already.

The resource base at Tunkillia was recently upgraded by 120,000oz to 1.6Moz, or 62.9Mt at 0.8g/t gold, with 56% siting in the indicated category.

Capricorn’s Karlawinda was developed on a reserve grade of 0.9g/t when the Aussie gold price was all of $2400/oz

.Barton has flagged it will deliver an optimised scoping study in to Tunkillia’s development before June 30 and that it will have much improved economics. Mind you, the earlier study work suggested robust economics anyway on a $3000/oz Aussie gold price assumption."

Thanks Barry.

Horse. Water. Drink.