Open Pit Upside at Mt Ida

Key Concepts

• Central Processing Facility (CPF): A centralized plant designed to process ore from multiple sources.
• Satellite Open Pits: Smaller, shallow mining sites located near a central facility that provide supplemental ore.
• Oxide/Transitional Material: Weathered rock near the surface that is easier to process and ideal for blending with harder, deeper rock.
• Underground Fresh Rock: Hard, primary ore extracted from deep mining operations.
• Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS): A comprehensive study used to determine the economic viability of a mining project.
• Financial Investment Decision (FID): The formal decision to proceed with the capital investment for a project.

Operational Strategy and Infrastructure

The core strategy for the Mount Ida project centers on utilizing Baldock as the primary hub for operations. Baldock is identified as the "heavy lifter" of the project, containing over one million ounces of gold. Because it is predominantly an underground mine, it will serve as the location for a central processing facility.

The operational framework involves a dual-fleet approach:

1. Underground Fleet: Dedicated to extracting fresh rock from the Baldock deposit.
2. Open Pit Fleet: A separate fleet tasked with mining regional satellite deposits.

The Role of Satellite Deposits

The company is deliberately targeting regional prospects to serve as satellite open pits. These are prioritized based on three specific criteria:

• Depth and Grade: They are shallow and contain higher-grade ore.
• Proximity: They are located close to the proposed central processing facility (e.g., the Westnell Europa prospect is only 7 km from Baldock).
• Metallurgical Blending: Because these pits consist of oxide and transitional material, they are ideal for blending with the underground fresh rock from Baldock. This blending process is critical for maintaining stability and efficiency within the processing plant.

Production Goals and Targets

The company has established a clear "top-down" production goal for Mount Ida:

• Target Output: 100,000 ounces of gold per annum.
• Mine Life: 8 to 10 years.
• Production Split: 80% of production is expected to come from the Baldock underground mine, with the remaining 20% sourced from the regional satellite open pits.

Current Exploration and Development

To achieve these targets, the company is currently running seven drill rigs at Mount Ida. The drilling program is bifurcated:

1. Deep Drilling: Focused on expanding and defining the resource at Baldock.
2. Targeted Drilling: Focused on the regional prospects to confirm their viability as satellite sources.

The immediate roadmap involves continuing this drilling campaign until the resource base is sufficient to support the 8-to-10-year mine life. Once this threshold is met, the project will transition into Definitive Feasibility Studies (DFS), leading to a final Financial Investment Decision (FID).

Synthesis

The Mount Ida project is structured to maximize efficiency by leveraging a high-volume underground core (Baldock) supplemented by high-grade, shallow satellite pits. By utilizing a central processing facility and a strategic blending of ore types, the company aims to achieve a stable, long-term production profile of 100,000 ounces per year. The current focus remains on aggressive exploration to solidify the resource base required to move the project toward a formal investment decision.