Auric Mining gets mine-to-mill firepower with new CEO

Auric Mining’s incoming chief executive officer, Gareth Solly, founded the highly successful gold producer Black Cat Syndicate.

ASX-listed gold junior,Auric Mining (ASX: AWJ), has formally welcomed Gareth Solly to the company as chief executive officer and executive director. The seasoned WA gold executive officially assumes the dual role from today to steer the company as it ramps up its ambitions to become a fully integrated mining house.

His appointment as CEO also sets the stage for him to succeed founder Mark English as managing director on or before 1 December, with English to remain as executive and finance director.

Most recently, the founding managing director of the Black Cat Syndicate, Solly, helped build that company from a $6M exploration initial public offering into a multi-asset gold producer with a 2.5-million-ounce resource base.

Auric says his initial focus will be on rebuilding the company’s Burbanks plant, growing resources across the portfolio and preparing for a restart of mining at its Munda gold operation. The appointment follows the company’s strategic April hire of processing expert Scott Bailey, also from Black Cat Syndicate.

Together, the two new hires give Auric a stronger workbench as it looks to bring processing in-house and take greater control of its production pathway in the Kalgoorlie region. Bringing the mill back online is a key priority and the company is investigating options to expand Burbanks beyond its current 180,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) processing capacity to potentially 500,000tpa.

We are excited to appoint a proven performer with a rare mine-to-mill mindset who is fully across the WA gold industry landscape, including our own Kalgoorlie region. We see the addition of Gareth to our team as putting us in a near-unassailable position to achieve our ambition of becoming WA’s next fully integrated mining house.   Auric Mining Managing Director Mark English

Auric’s aggressive growth push comes from a position of unusual financial strength for a junior gold company.

After stringing together a series of successful mining campaigns and benefiting from a roaring gold price, the company has built a formidable war chest of A$43 million in cash, bullion and listed investments.

Much of that momentum came from Auric’s Munda gold operation near Widgiemooltha, where the company’s recent Starter Pit campaign smashed expectations by producing 8886 ounces of gold - a massive 46 per cent above forecast. Those ounces were sold into a booming gold market at a remarkable average gold price of A$7178 per ounce.

Its earlier Jeffreys Find operation also proved enormously lucrative, generating A$16.5 million in cash returns from an impressively lean initial outlay of just A$1.2 million.

Looking ahead, Auric’s future production appears firmly anchored by its bigger Munda Main Pit, which currently hosts a 145,000-ounce gold resource.

Notably, the strong grades delivered during mining at the Starter Pit hinted that the broader Munda system could be both bigger and richer than previously interpreted. Auric is now eyeing a potential resource upgrade ahead of planned development activities later this year.

With fresh cash flow already demonstrated at Munda and a bigger and exceedingly competent operating team now falling into place, Auric looks to be assembling all the right pieces for its next growth phase.

If the company continues to build its leadership firepower and bulk up its skill set in key places, including plant refurbishment and renewed mining momentum, investors will almost certainly be keeping a close eye on future developments.

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