OUR TRACK RECORD
SPARTAN RESOURCES - DALGARANGA GOLD PROJECT
The Details
TIMEFRAME: 2022 - 2025
CLIENT: Spartan Resources (now Ramelius Resources)
LOCATION: Western Australia
COMMODITY: Gold
SERVICES: Metallurgical Testwork Management | Process Plant Design
TESTWORK MANAGEMENT
18 testwork programs
DESIGN
Completed concept and prefeasibilty study designs
CONTRIBUTION
Supported resource growth to 2.3Moz and a 21x share price increase
Project Background
In October 2022, Chemech were engaged to assist Spartan Resources (Gascoyne Resources at the time) with metallurgical and processing issues at their Dalgaranga process plant. Soon after however, operations were shut down due to unfavourable economics, and Chemech were re-directed towards assisting with shutting down the plant, extracting the gold-in-circuit, generating a comprehensive care-and-maintenance plan, and progressing the metallurgical testwork.
Chemech's Contribution
As Spartan had recently discovered the Never Never deposit, Chemech tookover management of the metallurgical testwork programs providing: testwork program design; sample selection; testwork scoping; technical support and guidance of the laboratory; flowsheet development and optimisation; scheduling and expediting; results interpretation and reporting; and generation of inputs to the process design criteria. Spartan grew their gold resource very rapidly and, as a result, 18 metallurgical testwork programs across four orebodies were completed in 2 years, supporting resource definition and process plant re-start studies.
Spartan completed a number of in-house studies to assess processing of the newly discovered resources through an upgraded Dalgaranga plant and Chemech were engaged to complete the process design and preliminary engineering for these studies. This included comprehensive assessments of the performance potential and integrity of the existing plant, as well as assessment of a number of throughput and flowsheet options. Concept, PFS and DFS studies were completed, with Chemech providing the metallurgical interpretation and process design for Spartan.
Final Outcome
In 2½ years, Spartan grew their share price 21 times on the back of increasing their mineral resource to 2.3Moz. Chemech played an integral role in supporting Spartan during this journey, from closing Dalgaranga and extracting gold from the circuit, developing the care-and-maintenance plan to keep the plant in good condition, managing the metallurgical testwork for new ores, and completing the process design for concept and feasibility studies to process the new ores.
Chemech were an important part of Spartan’s incredible 2-year journey following the discovery of the Never Never orebody and establishing a 2.3Moz gold resource. They managed our metallurgical testwork during this period and completed the process design for our options and feasibility studies. Chemech brought a level of experience, diligence and pragmatism to the team that gave great confidence in the outcomes and supported the rapid growth in Spartans value. It was great to have such a high-calibre independent resource that was completely aligned with our goals and objectives.
- Alex De Rossi, Spartan Resources General Manager, Technical Services