Pacgold fires starter gun on gold production at South Australian play
- Andrew Todd
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
Pacgold (ASX: PGO) is poised to transition from developer to producer having fired the starter’s gun on its recent White Dam heap leach purchase in South Australia, kicking off pond re-lining and plant maintenance ahead of first gold leaching slated for late November.
The company has locked in all reagents and consigned crushing equipment, targeting a modest $800,000 initial spend to bring the fully permitted operation back online, with pregnant gold solutions expected to flow before year end.
The low-capex restart targets residual ounces on the leach pads which will flow into working capital, freeing Pacgold to drill for deeper gold at its newest project and its Alice River and St George projects in Queensland.
The project churned out some 180,000 ounces between 2010 and 2018 from 7.5 million tonnes of ore grading 0.94 grams per tonne (g/t) gold via the Hannaford and Vertigo pits, leaving its White Dam North resource untouched, with gold still locked in the pads.
Phase 1 production centres on the re-crushing and turning over of existing western-edge material for a rapid leach pass once the first solution pond is relined – a two-month job starting immediately.
An initial 100,000-tonne parcel will be crushed and stacked early next year, with full cyanide irrigation to follow.
Pacgold’s massive 25,000m reverse drill program at the project will also get underway this month to infill existing resources and test near-mine gold targets.
Updated models, pit designs and cashflow studies will feed revised mine plans to fold the White Dam North inventory into the mining schedule, with the current resource standing at 4.6 million tonnes of dirt grading 0.7 g/t gold for 102,000 ounces.
The company says its Vertigo deposit is capped to above 150m and will be first cab of the rank for drilling, set to cover Vertigo, Hannaford and White Dam North, all requiring minimum working capital.
White Dam now anchors the pivot to cashflow, with a recent $13 million capital raise bankrolling the restart process and continued drilling at Alice River.
With minimal capital expenditure required to leverage existing permits and infrastructure, we are rapidly restarting operations, through early key contractor engagement and with re-lining of the solution ponds to begin imminently. All reagents required for restart of pad irrigation have been purchased and we anticipate the first pregnant solutions to start flowing from the lead pad to the plant by mid-December.
Pacgold Limited Managing Director Matthew Boyes
The fully operational mine, located just 80kms southwest of Broken Hill, has remains a highly prospective gold system with the real kicker being the existing gold still sitting in the heap leach pad.
By simply re-crushing and retreating that material, Pacgold says it expects to quickly fire up production and unlock a handy stream of early cashflow as soon as February next year - all without the heavy lifting of a full-scale mining restart.
Large-scale heap leach operations are a rare breed in Australia, but Zijin Mining’s Binduli project near Kalgoorlie proves just how powerful they can be. In 2024 alone, the operation produced 263,000 ounces of gold from 8.2 million tonnes of ore, highlighting a cost-efficient approach to scaling up extraction from low-grade deposits for maximum return.
The restart overlays Pacgold’s Queensland campaign, where rigs continue to chase scale at the Alice River gold system and the newly farmed-in St George gold-antimony play.
With gold prices sitting pretty at US$4000 (A$6100) per ounce, White Dam is primed for a swift ramp-up. The low-capex restart turns residual ounces into working capital, freeing Pacgold to drill deeper at Alice River and St George while the South Australian operation quietly funds its next leg of growth.
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