Black Cat Syndicate aims for larger processing plant at Kal East project

Black Cat Syndicate is kickstarting plans for a bigger processing facility at its Kal East gold project as it looks to accelerate its production strategy.

Black Cat told the Australian Securities Exchange on Thursday it wanted the Kal East plant to have throughput of 1.2 to 1.5 million tonnes per annum, up from the previously proposed 0.8Mtpa.

The company is currently mining the Myhree and Bounday open pits at the project but the ore is being processed at Norton Gold Fields’ Paddington mill north of Kalgoorlie-Boulder.

On Thursday, Black Cat said MACA Interquip Mintrex had been awarded the engineering study to expand the fully approved Kal East processing facility design.

The company said engineering had started and would utilise both of the company’s already owned ball mills and supporting infrastructure in an expanded design.

Black Cat said project acceleration would target the ordering of long-lead items early next year, with the aim of starting on-ground works during the March 2025 quarter.

The company said mining studies were under way to reoptimise open pit and underground mines to feed an expanded processing facility, while previous mine designs using a gold price of $2500/oz would be optimised to reflect the current gold price environment of $4000/oz.

Black Cat said extensional and infill drilling to feed an expanded processing facility, including baseloads from Fingals — open in all directions — and Trojan — 1km long by 20m wide — would begin at the start of 2025.

The company said Kal East covered 650sqkm and had a mineral resource of 18.8 million tonnes at 2.1 grams per tonne for 1.3 million ounces of gold, including a preliminary reserve of 3.7Mt at 2.0 g/t Au for 243,000oz.

All this work will be done while Black Cat’s main focus remains on restarting the Paulsens gold operation in the West Pilbara it acquired from Northern Star Resources in 2022.

The company is targeting the restart of the project — which has a mineral resource of 4.3Mt at 4.0 g/t for 548,000oz — before the end of the year.

Black Cat managing director Gareth Solly said with the Paulsens processing plant refurbishment tracking on time and on budget, the company had furthered its relationship with MACA through the study and engineering phase of expanding the Kal East processing facility.

“Our gold acceleration strategy is all about more gold, sooner, and having our own processing facility operating at up to 1.5Mtpa in early 2026 is integral to that,” he said.