News

WPG Resources Ltd advised that the Tarcoola gold mine was officially opened yesterday at the South Australian minesite, located approximately 3km from Tarcoola.
On the 11th November WPG announced that a Decision to Mine had been taken and the project’s immediate development was progressed following the approval of the project’s Program for Environment Protection and Rehabilitation. Within 2 weeks of the Decision to Mine, work commenced on developing the Tarcoola pit.
The first ore from Tarcoola is anticipated to arrive at Challenger in the coming weeks.

Independence Group NL advised that the first nickel concentrate has been transported from the Nova Project to BHP Nickel West Pty Ltd in Kambalda. Peter Bradford, Managing Director and CEO of IGO said:
“The first shipment of concentrate is another important milestone for the Nova Project and this took place earlier than contemplated by the Feasibility Study and in line with the guidance we provided to the market in our ASX release of 26 October 2016.”
Two three-year off take agreements are in place for the nickel concentrate from Nova, each for 50% of production; the first with BHP Nickel West for delivery to Kambalda, and the second with Glencore, to be shipped offshore via the port of Esperance. All copper concentrate will be shipped offshore via the port of Esperance under a three-year off take agreement with Trafigura with the first shipments expected in the June 2017 quarter.
The next major milestones for the Nova Project will include; Complete drilling and resource estimation at Conductor Five, expected in the March 2017 quarter; First offshore shipments of nickel and copper concentrates, expected in the June 2017 quarter; and Ramp up to full production rate, expected by mid CY17.

Saracen Managing Director, Raleigh Finlayson today said the A$42m exploration budget had already made substantial inroads towards achieving the goal of growing group production and mine life.
“ We see outstanding potential to grow our gold inventory in the coming quarters, laying the foundations for future production growth above the 300,000oz pa production rate we anticipate by the June quarter,” he said.
Drilling continues at Thunderbox with two surface diamond rigs; the program is progressing well, to-date a total of 11,100m have been drilled with full results for 11 out of 14 completed holes.The results confirm that the Thunderbox mineralisation is consistent and persistent.
Significant results from the drilling include:

TBDD0101 – 52m @ 3.0 g/t (incl uding 19m @ 4.8g/t) 
TBDD0109w1 – 47m @ 2.3 g/t (incl uding 19m @ 3.2g/t) 
TBDD0109 – 28m @ 2.4 g/t (incl uding 14m @ 3.3g/t) 
TBDD0107 – 25m @ 3.0 g/t (incl uding 10m @ 5.8g/t 
TBDD107w1 – 25m @ 2.4 g/t (incl uding 11m @ 4.0g/t) 
TBDD114w1 – 23m @ 2.4 g/t (incl uding 11m @ 3.1g/t) 
TBDD125 – 14m @ 4.1 g/t. 

The new results are adding to the confidence and scale of the upside opportunity that is present at the Thunderbox operation, which is focused on the thicker, higher grade shoots.
Drilling at King of the Hills has been focused on grade control activities in the active mining areas, and near-mine extensions to the high-grade Lower Kingdom lode.

Flagship co-funding program encourages exploration investment
The EIS was established in 2009

The Liberal National Government announced today the 42 successful projects which will share up to $4.75 million under Round 14 of the Exploration Incentive Scheme’s (EIS) Co-funded Drilling Program.
Mines and Petroleum Minister Sean L’Estrange said the highly competitive drilling program, heading into its ninth year, provided companies with added incentive to drill in underexplored regions.
“Encouraging exploration is the key to the continuity of Western Australia’s vital resources industry, which will underpin the State’s economy for decades to come,” Mr L’Estrange said.
“This very successful program has already resulted in a number of major discoveries. Among the success stories is the Nova discovery east of Northam, supported by EIS geophysics data and co-funding in 2011-12, with production having commenced in November this year.”
Other EIS successful discoveries include the Camelwood nickel deposit 500km north of Kalgoorlie, Yeneena copper deposit in the Paterson Province, Millenium zinc in the East Pilbara, and Dusk Til Dawn gold discoveries north-east of Wiluna, as well as deep gold at Gruyere east of Laverton and the nickel discovery at Emily Ann near Lake Johnson.
The Co-funded Drilling Program refunds up to 50 per cent of direct drilling costs with caps of $150,000 for a multi-hole project, $200,000 for a single deep hole and $30,000 for a prospector’s project.
Refunds are made after completion of drilling and the submission of reports which are released publically on the Department of Mines and Petroleum’s WAMEX and WAPIMS databases, after a six-month confidentiality period.
The Minister said the information submitted added to the geological knowledge of the State, and helped reduce risks for subsequent explorers. An economic impact study released early in 2015 showed that every $1 million spent by the EIS generates $10.3 million of exploration activity and a longer term benefit to the State, in terms of higher Gross State Product, of $23.7 million

Western Areas Ltd announced that it has negotiated and entered into an Offtake Contract with the Tsingshan Group, through its associated entity Golden Harbour International Pte Ltd, to import raw materials for the production of stainless steel. Tsingshan is China’s largest producer of stainless steel, particularly the high nickel content 300 stainless series. Tsingshan has advised that it is the largest consumer of nickel products in China and use approximately 25% of China’s total annual consumption of nickel.
Western Areas Managing Director, Dan Lougher, said the agreement with Tsingshan was many years in the making and followed from the Company’s desire to capture as much value as possible for the nickel in concentrate sold by Western Areas.
“Over three years ago, Western Areas recognised Tsingshan as an innovator in the production of stainless steel and since then we have developed a close working relationship through the sharing of technical knowledge and many site visits,” Mr Lougher said.
“Tsingshan is clearly leading the charge in China to produce a greater proportion of the higher quality 300 series stainless steel product, which contains up to four times the amount of nickel than 200 series stainless. With this in mind, it has been a specific Western Areas strategy to innovatively position itself in the stainless steel supply chain, with the ultimate objective of delivering a stronger bottom line to our shareholders through investigating non-traditional markets and thereby capturing a greater share of the value of the nickel we produce.
“Together with Tsingshan, we are capturing this additional value as Tsingshan intends to utilise a proven and highly integrated process to produce stainless steel, incorporating roasting of the nickel concentrate, which has significant productivity benefits over the conventional smelting and refining processes.
“As Tsingshan is China’s largest consumer of nickel and producer of ferro-nickel, it makes clear strategic sense to take the advantage of linking our company directly with the end user,” Mr Lougher said

Barrick Gold is reviewing the financial backing behind an approximately $US1.3 billion ($1.8 billion) bid for its stake in the Kalgoorlie mine by Minjar Gold, a unit of Shanghai-listed Shandong Tyan Home, two sources have told Reuters.
According to these sources, little-known Minjar has trumped offers by Australian, Chinese and Canadian companies for the asset and Toronto-based Barrick, the world's largest gold producer, is studying the offer for the 50-per cent stake to ensure Minjar has adequate resources and support to complete the transaction.
The sources declined to be identified as the matter is private.

Monthly trend employment in Australia decreased in October 2016, according to figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today.
In October 2016, trend employment decreased by 1,000 persons to 11,946,600 persons, the first decrease in the trend series since November 2013. This slight fall in trend employment reflected an increase in part-time employment of 8,400 persons being more than offset by a decrease in full-time employment of 9,500 persons.
"Since December 2015 we have seen a continued decline in trend full-time employment and an increase in part-time employment, with a corresponding increase in the share of hours worked by part-time workers. This shift to part-time employment has been more pronounced for males compared to females," said the Program Manager of ABS' Labour and Income Branch, Jacqui Jones.
"Over the past year, part-time employment has increased from around 31 per cent of employment to 32 per cent. That's a relatively large shift, if you consider that it was around 29 per cent 10 years ago. "Since December 2015, there are now around 132,700 more persons working part-time, compared with a 69,900 decrease in those working full-time," said Ms Jones.
The trend monthly hours worked increased by 3.2 million hours (0.2 per cent), with increases in total hours worked by both full-time and part-time workers.
The trend unemployment rate remained steady at 5.6 per cent. The participation rate decreased by 0.1 percentage points to 64.5 per cent.Participation has decreased by 0.6 percentage points over the past year.
Trend series smooth the more volatile seasonally adjusted estimates and provide the best measure of the underlying behaviour of the labour market.
The seasonally adjusted number of persons employed increased by 9,800 in October 2016. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for October 2016 remained at 5.6 per cent, and the seasonally adjusted labour force participation rate remained at 64.4 per cent.

Australian gold producers gave a big thumbs-up with key gold miners on the ASX finishing up over 10% for the day. Gold took off as Trumps shock likely win sent markets into turmoil around the world. Gold traded close to $US1340 as the market went into defence mode. It marked gold's biggest single-day gain since June 24 when it rose as much as 8 percent when Britain decided to leave the European Union. The economic uncertainly this brings has seen a flight to safe haven assets. Gold miners SARACEN MINERAL were up over 15% for the day to 1.40 and NORTHERN STAR closed up 10.5% to 4.64 for the day.

Canadian listed Newmarket Gold is the owner of 3 underground operating mines in Australia. The flagship operation, Fosterville Gold Mine, and the Stawell Gold Mine are located in the state of Victoria, and the Cosmo Gold Mine is located in the Northern Territory. Newmarket Gold produced 55,794 ounces during the third quarter and  and has achieved record production of 175,041 ounces for the first nine months of 2016. Fosterville achieved third quarter production of 36,967 ounces, only 1% off the record performance achieved in Q2 2016, accounting for 66% of consolidated production. Cosmo achieved a record recovery rate of 95.3%, up from its record of 94.2% in the previous quarter, contributing 10,677 ounces of production during Q3 2016, with Stawell contributing 8,150 ounces.
Douglas Forster, President & CEO, Newmarket Gold said “Based on record consolidated production in the first nine months of 2016, Newmarket Gold is on track to meet the Company’s improved guidance of 225,000 - 235,000 ounces of gold as announced in Q2 2016. The business combination with Kirkland Lake Gold is expected to close during Q4, more than doubling 2016 pro-forma gold production to over 500,000 ounces from a new operating platform of 7 underground mines in Tier 1 mining jurisdictions. In addition, the combined company will generate superior free cash flow and have strong financial and technical capabilities to exploit its pipeline of exploration and development opportunities to fuel future organic growth. We believe the combined entity will be a preferred investment among mid-tier gold producers, commanding an increased capital market profile and enhanced shareholder value.”
“Newmarket Gold achieved record production of 175,041 ounces of gold for the first nine months of 2016, led by high grade, low cost ounces from our flagship Fosterville Mine which produced 107,350 ounces of gold with YTD AISC per ounce sold of $743. Productivity improvements at Fosterville were achieved through increased mine production utilizing new higher capacity haul trucks and the opening of new production levels in the Lower Phoenix area, as well as increased mill throughput rates, all of which contributed to favorable third quarter operating cash costs per ounce of $471 and an AISC per ounce sold of $765. Newmarket’s liquidity position continues to improve, supporting our overriding objective to grow free cash flow which totaled $11.9 million in Q3 2016 and $38.2 million YTD. Since the start of 2016, we have generated cash flow from operations of $74.7 million and ended the third quarter with $82.5 million in cash, a 126% increase from the start of the year.”

Millennium Mineral today anounces that it has discovered a new 2.25 km-long zone of mineralisation at its Nullagine Gold Project in WA’s Pilbara. Drilling results highlight the strong potential to establish open pit operations along this trend, which stretches from the All Nations North deposit in the north-east to the Hopetoun deposit to the south-west.
Millennium has had three RC drilling rigs as well as a diamond rig (where required) operating at the Project for most of 2016 to assist with delineation of new Mineral Resources. Given the success of the exploration program and its positive impact on Nullagine’s mine life. Millennium has increased the 2016 exploration budget to $13.9 million with a similar expenditure expected next year.
Millennium Chief Executive Glenn Dovaston said the discovery of significant mineralisation along the Hopetoun – Endeavour trend provided further evidence that the Company’s strategy to grow. Nullagine’s mine life was working.“This discovery is incredibly exciting,” Mr Dovaston said. “The results are strong and demonstrate the presence of mineralisation along this 2.25 km stretch. “Once we get the final assays from this program, we will devise a strategy to establish the full extent of the mineralisation and its potential to be part of the inventory and mine plan at Nullagine.”