- Region: Coolgardie
- Ownership: 100%
- Location: Adjacent to the town of Coolgardie, 35Km west of Kalgoorlie
- Product: Gold
- Project Status: Exploration & development
OVERVIEW
Focus is the largest landholder in the Coolgardie gold belt with over 450sq km of tenements in close proximity to its Three Mile Hill Mill. Focus suspended production in Coolgardie in 2013 in response to lower gold prices allowing it to concentrate on the exploration of the wider Coolgardie area within the Focus tenements, while also looking to expand its near mill mineable reserves targeting higher grade, larger scale ore bodies.
KEY ASSETS
- Three Mile Hill Processing Plant
Focus recommissioned the 1.2Mtpa Three Mile Hill Processing plant in 2009 after completing a $22m refit, the plant, which is situated less than 5km trucking distance from the Tindals Mining Centre is currently on care and maintenance in a state that will allow for a rapid restart.
- Tindals Mining Centre
The Tindals Mining Centre has historically been the engine room of the Focus business. The centre comprises a large underground operation that has delivered a gold endowment of approximately 2,500 ounces per vertical metre. The underground was successfully redeveloped by Focus in 2008 after discovering the high grade Perseverance ore body which produced at circa 8.0g/t. Focus subsequently successfully mined 5 main ore bodies in the underground which reaches a depth of circa 400 metres. During 2011/2012, Focus also developed a series of open pits within the Tindals Mining Centre pursuing a series of targets linking through the operation.
EXPLORATION
Focus has a strong track record of discovery and resource expansion in Coolgardie. The Company has added nearly 700,000oz in Mineral Resource since 2008 whilst mining over 330,000oz of gold.
The majority of previous exploration focused on just 2% of the Coolgardie landholding around the Tindals Mining Centre leaving many other areas within the project relatively under-explored. A three year Exploration plan is now in place which began with the evaluation of the Focus Minerals Coolgardie tenement package, to allow for the ranking and prioritisation of works for the future. A series of greenfield and brownfield exploration techniques will be used to extensively to test areas that have previously had little attention. Some of these tenements include a number of historic high grade mining areas which have not been properly tested including the Lindsays and Bayleys project areas, Three Mile Hill trend and Norris project area.
In addition to exploration of the wider Coolgardie area, importance has also been placed on expanding our near mill mineable reserves targeting higher grade, larger scale ore bodies. Work on these projects consists of deeper Reverse circulation and diamond drilling with the intention of defining larger underground resources.
GEOLOGY
The Coolgardie district is located on the western side of the Archaean Norseman-Wiluna Greenstone Belt within the Coolgardie Domain. Gold deposits in the Coolgardie district occur in a number of different host lithologies, including dolerites, gabbros, basalts, ultramafics and diorites. In the Tindals Mining Centre the gold deposits are hosted within basalt, ultramafic and diorite rock units. In the Greater Coolgardie area the gold deposits are hosted in dolerite, gabbro, basalt, ultramafic and, to a lesser extent, felsic intrusive rock units. At The Mount gold mine, near the town of Widgiemooltha, the deposit is hosted in basalt.
HISTORY
Gold was discovered in Coolgardie the year before the first find in Kalgoorlie. The discovery, in 1892, was at Fly Flat, near what was to become the Bayleys Reward deposit, by Bayley and Ford. The majority of historic mines targeted quartz lode deposits, with the Bayleys, Bonnievale and Burbanks mines being the most productive. The early prospectors also recognised that felsic-intermediate porphyritic intrusions were also a common host rock in the Coolgardie area. These styles of deposits were exploited at Tindals and Brilliant, with only significant historical production coming from Tindals.
The first modern exploration and mining in the Coolgardie area commenced in the late 1970s-early 1980s. This was when companies started to consolidate groups of tenements in the Coolgardie area that had previously been held by individual prospectors. Since 1892, historic and modern mining has produce in excess of 2.8 million ounces from the Coolgardie area. Modern exploration has used a combination of magnetic and electromagnetic geophysical techniques, soil geochemistry, geological mapping and RC and diamond drilling to extend known deposits and discover new ones.