The Tomingley gold operation, near Dubbo in New South Wales, is set to increase production to more than 100 000 oz/y by 2027, says ASX-listed Alkane Resources.

The company on Monday announced a five-year plan for Tomingley, which will produce 455 000 oz to 505 000 oz of gold over that period.

“Tomingley has a big future ahead of it,” said MD Nic Earner. “Our five-year plant details the capital programme that develops the opencut operations, expands the plant and moves the operation to deliver above 100 000 oz of gold a year,” he said.

When the mine was commissioned in 2014, Tomingley was based on four opencut gold deposits. The mine extended underground in 2018, currently producing exclusively from underground operations. The most recent underground development was the Roswell deposit, which started producing gold earlier this month.

With the development of the Roswell underground deposit, the next five years will see the development of the already approved opencut operations at San Antonio. This requires the relocation of a section of the Newell highway and generates sufficient ore to justify the upgrade of the Tomingley process plant to increase throughput to a nominal 1.5-million tonnes a year rate.

To access the San Antonio deposit, which is located underneath the current Newell highway, Alkane will build a new section of highway to bypass the development. The Kyalite road also needs to be realigned as it runs through the proposed opencut. These construction projects are expected to take six to nine months and must be completed before opencut development can commence.

About A$89-million in capital will be required for the highway relocation and the expansion, in addition to the current capital expenditure of about A$43-million. A final investment decision will be made early in the 2025 calendar year.

When the new openpit comes into production in 2027, production will increase to between 100 000 oz and 110 000 oz and all-in sustaining costs (AISC) will be lowered to between A$1 900/oz and A$2 100/oz.

This compares with production of 55 000 oz to 58 000 oz at an AISC of $2 150/oz to A$2 350/oz this year.