Cream Mining has commenced underground services at Black Cat Syndicate’s Paulsens gold operation in Nanutarra, Western Australia.
Activities undertaken by Cream Mining include the installation of secondary ventilation fans and mine services, ladders and platforms, the rehabilitation of existing escapeway systems and the firing of development headings.
Black Cat has also mobilised a fleet of machinery at Paulsens. The fleet includes a fully refurbished Sandvik DD421 twin boom jumbo, which has commenced conduct rehabilitation and development works.
“Black Cat is rapidly expanding the operations team and mobile fleet as we ramp up mining activities as part of our high-grade stockpile strategy,” Black Cat managing director Gareth Solly said.
An underground loader and truck are expected to be delivered to Paulsens in early August. Once delivered, trucking of broken high-grade ore to the surface will commence to build the high-grade stockpile ahead of the Paulsens mill restart in December.
“Paulsens is a hive of activity with upgrades to site facilities, underground mining and processing plant refurbishment all underway and accelerating,” Solly said.
Black Cat has continued mapping, sampling and marking-out mining areas that weren’t included in the May 2024 restart study for Paulsens but are supported by high-grade drilling intercepts such as 1.10m at 163.91 grams per tonne (g/t) and 1.29m at 137.80g/t from 45m. This analysis remains ongoing.
Black Cat said multiple opportunities for gold mining exist outside of these initial areas, including “developed high-grade veins that currently have insufficient drilling to support a mineral resource estimate”.
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