Bellevue Gold has announced strong progress at the Armand area of its Bellevue gold project in the Goldfields region of WA.
The company said stope production is ramping up and the construction of an accompanying processing plant is almost finished.
Five long-hole stopes have been completed to date in the Upper Armand mining area including two currently active higher-grade stopes.
Cavity monitoring scans taken of the mined voids have highlighted the favourable stoping conditions and firings have shown to break back closely to the drilled holes.
Bellevue said rock fragmentation size reporting from the stopes is showing to be optimal for both efficient haulage and processing.
The Armand 1251–100 high-grade stope firing yielded 97 per cent metal recovery over the 95 per cent originally planned.
The company said dilution has also been minimised to 6 per cent over the 10 per cent planned, resulting in a higher stope grade of 8.7 grams per tonne of gold being achieved, an increase on the planned 7.3 grams per tonne of gold.
Slot rising is being completed at the project’s Bellevue South and Marceline mining areas with stoping due to commence this month.
The areas will undergo stoping the pre-production phase, which will provide stockpiled tonnes ready for processing plant commissioning, with the fourth production area, Deacon, now being accessed by development.
Bellevue has said construction at the site’s processing plant is now over 95 per cent complete and only minor mechanical, piping and electrical installation activities remain.
Full commissioning teams are embedded on site, both from contractor GR Engineering Services and in-house Bellevue personnel.
Commissioning through the crusher has commenced, as has commissioning of the ball mill and thickeners.
Bellevue said the team is progressing through commissioning activities and first production remains on track for the quarter.
