mt.morgan news, page-9

Everybody is watching with great interest what will happen with the old Mt Morgan Gold mine.

The site was bought by Norton Gold Fields - Australia's fourth largest gold producer, a couple of years ago and since then there have been feasibility studies into developing the project.

The company is still in the funding stages at the moment, but can see the need to move fast on extracting gold, especially with world high gold prices at the moment.

The company's Project Director Andre Labuschagne says that there have been a few feasibility studies into different mining possibilities but is convinced that there is a future for taking the gold out of the tailings from when the mine was in operation previously.

"We originally did the feasibility on gold, then we looked at it again and we said there's so much sulphur in it and pyrite is used for the production of sulphuric acid and we re-looked at the feasibility ... but the ultimate feasibility including the production of pyrite, copper and gold looked very good.

"We looked at the sulphur market and in every other sulphur market in the world, the sulphur market has taken a really good knock and we said 'well we're not sure that the sulphur or the pyrite market is absolutely there'.

"There's a huge market there for it in China and we initiated a pyrite study, a market study to see where to go.

"We basically decided that the project will now be implemented in two stages, it would be a gold only stage where we will produce gold, we will still produce pyrites and copper but we might not extract them as a salable product.

"Then at stage two, and that might take from six to twelve months or longer, once we've secured the pyrite market, we'll just add those few units in, and we'll do the full project as per the feasibility study.

"As a gold only it is a good project and at the gold price, it is now actually a great project.

"If the gold price stays at these levels, we are keen to take advantage of the current gold price as soon as we can.

"Over the weekend it (the gold price) went up to as high as $1450 dollars an ounce and it's been in the high $1200s for the last two or three months so it looked promising, how long it will last we don't know, but normally people turn to gold in these sort of situations."

So how soon can we expect to see the project start up in Mount Morgan?

"It is all based on funding, we're looking at quite a few options, there are some interested parties we're talking to and then if Paddington keeps going the way we're going, the gold price remains where it is, it might not be at too long a distance for us to self-fund the project.

"We are very keen to get going, we just need to make sure that we manage the risk profiles of the company and we would like to secure the project and keep it to ourself and not necessarily go out in a joint venture but we're happy to look at any option to get it going.

"We still believe that we'll get at least a twelve year life out of Mount Morgan as per the previous announcements.

"We're convinced that there's enough resources there for at least twelve years and there would be potential resources for many more, but it is difficult to say.

"We will initiate in the next two or three months a little exploration program which will do some more drilling to see what's available other than what we know.

"The outcome of that will give us a bit more comfort on the life beyond twelve years.

If the project gets started soon, could there be job opportunities for any coal miners in the region who have been retrenched?

"When I started the feasibility the middle of last year, one of my concerns was how are we going to get really good people to fill the roles, because six months ago the market was just very tough to get really good people in it to come and work, but the current market we can get some of the best guys because there are some good guys out there who were either retrenched or moved on for their jobs.

"I'm convinced that we can get a really good team together and make it a good project."