'The commencement of commissioning is a defining milestone for Larvotto and reflects the significant progress made over the past twelve months since the plant refurbishment started.'
- Larvotto Resources managing director Ron Heeks
Larvotto Resources has marked a significant milestone in the commissioning of its Hillgrove antimony-gold mine in New South Wales. The staged commissioning, which kicked off last week, is the next step in a carefully sequenced restart that began underground at the nearby Metz mine.
The underground contractor PYBAR has been pushing forward with the Metz workings and rehabilitating old drives since mining restarted. First development ore was delivered to surface stockpiles in May, with ore stockpiles continuing to build since then. This ore has now begun moving from stockpiles to the run-of-mine pad, before being fed into the primary jaw crusher, closed-circuit secondary crusher, and screening circuit.
The company says the crushing, screening, and fine ore storage section has been successfully commissioned as the first stage of the plant restart. The resulting ore is now sitting in storage ready to feed the milling circuit during the upcoming phase of wet-end commissioning. Larvotto plans to run the crushing circuit on waste for a limited period to generate crushed rock for various engineering requirements, allowing more time to bed the crushing system down.
Hillgrove is forecast to become Australia's second and largest producing antimony mine, with Larvotto pointing to the planned production of around 4900 tonnes of antimony – almost seven per cent of global production – and more than 40,000 ounces of gold a year across the current seven-year mine life. The company's tungsten testwork is continuing, with multiple zones of tungsten mineralisation identified and unrecovered tungsten from previous operations sitting in the old tailings dam, all pointing to the potential for a third critical minerals string to Hillgrove's bow.
Larvotto Resources managing director Ron Heeks said the commencement of commissioning is a defining milestone for the company. Heeks noted that the company has made significant progress over the past twelve months since the plant refurbishment started. The project is expected to have a major economic impact on the local community.
The company has also locked in a binding seven-year offtake deal with Glencore International for its Hillgrove gold concentrate, complementing its previously announced antimony concentrate agreement with Wogen Resources. The Glencore agreement is expected to cover 15,000 dry metric tonnes of gold concentrate a year.
Larvotto is also pushing ahead with its Modification 5 application process with the NSW government, seeking approval to lift its processing capacity from 250,000 to 500,000 tonnes a year, while also enabling dry-stack tailings and other environmental improvements. The company says responses to questions from the NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure and other stakeholders are being finalised and are expected to be submitted by the end of July.
Once the fine ore bin is full, Larvotto plans to run the crushing circuit on waste for a limited period to generate crushed rock for various engineering requirements, allowing more time to bed the crushing system down. This will also give operators familiarisation time on the circuit.
EPCM contractor Interquip is completing its work on the communications, electrical, instrumentation, and control systems at the wet end of the plant before that phase is commissioned. Hillgrove is steadily working through its transition from development to a producing mine. For Larvotto, the next few weeks will be all about transforming a historic mining field into a modern critical minerals operation, with antimony and gold leading the production charge and the prospect of a valuable tungsten by-product adding another layer of upside.