Bullabulling Gold delivers cost savings on new mine plan

THE BOURSE WHISPERER: Bullabulling Gold (ASX: BGB) completed an updated economic assessment of the company’s eponymous Bullabulling gold project.

The assessment was based on a revised open pit design and mining plan the company had developed during the initial phase of its definitive feasibility study (DFS).

Bullabulling said the new mine plan had delivered improvements in cash costs, extended mine life and increased gold production relative to the project’s pre‐feasibility study (PFS).

 

Isometric view of the proposed Bullabulling gold mine. Source: Company announcement

 

Gold production of 2.1 million ounces is forecast over a mine life of 12 years with average C1 cash costs of US$843 per ounce.

State and private royalties total US$63 per ounce and sustaining capital amounts to US$24 per ounce, taking total all in cash costs to US$930 per ounce.

“We are very happy with the outcome of this work, which is in line with our expectations for a project of this scale,” Bullabulling Gold managing director Brett Lambert said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“It is also pleasing to note that the optimisation studies suggest the mine design can be adapted to suit a wide range of gold prices, with robust cash margins indicated at all levels.

“We will now turn our attention to other areas of the project where there is potential to improve costs and deliver more gold, confident that attention to detail and focus on efficiency will continue to get results.”

Bullabulling explained the mine plan is based on development of four open pits.

Detailed pit designs were developed from a pit optimisation that was financially evaluated at a gold price of $1,500 per ounce.

Total mining inventory within the pits is 89.3 million tonnes grading 0.84 grams per tonne gold for 2.4 million ounces of contained gold, which the company said correlated with the optimisation results.