White Rock Minerals Limited (ASX: WRM; OTCQX:WRMCF) (‘White Rock’ or ‘the Company’) is pleased to announce that it has successfully re-commissioned the gold processing plant at its Morning Star Underground Gold Mine in Victoria.

Highlights

• Three campaigns treating existing low-grade gold stockpiles have now been completed, with name-plate throughputs between 7 and 9 tph achieved, treating approximately 1,700 tonnes of material.
• White Rock recovered gold concentrate during these campaigns to produce gold doré bars for sale. This is a major milestone for the Company, which now joins the ranks of ASX-listed gold producers.
• White Rock’s primary objective at the Morning Star Gold Mine is a low-capital cost restart of gold production from multiple reef locations.
• Initial gold production was delivered on time in Q3 2022 with further gold doré to now continue as more higher-grade gold reefs are mined and processed through the gold processing plant.
• Morning Star’s existing infrastructure (shaft, headframe and winder, dewatering system and off-shaft development), and a functional gold processing plant have provided White Rock with a rapid pathway to gold production. This allows the Company to leapfrog many of the issues associated with a company going from explorer to producer - the time to achieve the necessary approvals and permits, supply chain challenges, ordering and delivering long lead times, and cost inflation and construction risks.
• With the successful completion of this commissioning step, gold processing will now swing onto the higher-grade gold feed material recently mined and delivered to the surface.
• High-grade gold material will now be fed through the gold processing plant after the recent re- commencement of underground mining activities, focusing on the McNally Reef on 7 and 8 Level, and on the Dickenson Reef on 4 Level¹.
• Pre-production development underground is also seeing activities to access other potential high-grade gold-bearing reefs the Exhibition Reef and Stacpoole Reef above 4 Level, identified from the recent and substantive diamond drilling campaign.
• Drilling has also identified a fifth potential reef for exploitation above 9 Level being the Whitelaw’s North Reef. White Rock will commence access to this reef in 2023 once the other reefs have been established for production.

Figure 1: First gold doré bars produced by White Rock

"Our team on site has done a fantastic job to get to this point in the Mine’s restart of gold production, safely and on time..We look forward to now ramping up production as we recruit more personnel, develop more reefs and increase the team on-site to process this increasing volume of material."

Matt Gill, CEO of White Rock Minerals

View the full announcement here.

To learn more about White Rock Minerals Limited and the gold sector, subscribe to the Company's Chairman’s List.