Meg - I suppose the question is are you are just clutching at...

Meg - I suppose the question is are you are just clutching at straws here with your Pilbara gold fancy or are you thinking laterally? Me, I go with the latter - a big reason I hang around hc is to pick up on ideas that I'd not thought of. Big tick, mate.

I've not paid any attention to the overall Pilbara gold scene even though I follow Black Cat Syndicate which has the reinvigorated Paulsen's operation to the east of what is now Northern Star's Mallina mega project. These days, when I look at a prospective gold company the first thing I check is where the nearest processing plants are. The gold price might go higher, it might go lower but at the moment mining companies are crazy if they are not trying to monetise whatever they can. These days miners can throw fairly average ore through a processing plant and still be better off than a company with better but stranded ore, in my opinion.

NS's Mallina project is yonks off from getting its mill built. Black Cat's Paulsen mill is almost through commissioning and into steady state but I'm not sure how much spare capacity they have in their 450ktpa plant.

Another operating mill I could find in that region is the Warranwoona mill near Marble Bar that Mark Connelly's Calidus Resources went bust trying to stabilise. It's big at 2.4mtpa and is now in the hands of walk-on-molten-gold Mark Creasy. Creasy also now owns just over 18% of Peregrine Gold which has its own Mallina project on the coast just north of Port Headland. He has applied for a couple of special prospecting licenses for the Mallina which he will split 60 40 with Peregrine so clearly he's got a sniff (the technical director of Peregrine used to be Creasy's chief geo apparently).

Capricorn Metals also has a mill, at its Karlawinda operation near Newman but that is about all the gold processing plants in the Pilbara as far as I see.

I found a comprehensive article by headstock that also listed the following as having an interest in the Pilbara gold scene: Kalamazoo Resources, Novo Resources, Kairos Minerals, Riversgold, Golden State Mining, New Age Exploration and Mantle Mining but I don't think any of those have a mill of any type on their properties.

Going off the most recent annual report it does not seem that Sayona has any active work going on in the gold tenements it has in the Pilbara. But if Mark Creasy is doing deals in the region then surely others will also want to go kick some rocks there. No doubt Lucas Dow has more than enough on his plate with the merger and keeping NAL from sinking but surely the old codgers on the Sayona board can do the rounds of the west Perth coffee shops and check for any interest (on behalf of the company).