It is also inline with the company’s intent to develop accessible revenue streams within six months of beginning work on-site or within 12-14 months for the full expansion scope of work.
Larvotto Resources managing director Ron Heeks said: “The purchase of Echidna Gully is an important step in our strategy to support the growing workforce at the Hillgrove antimony-gold project… Echidna Gully provides an excellent facility that allows us to offer a comfortable and convenient base for our employees, contract drill crews and plant modification teams, reflecting our commitment to bringing the Hillgrove mine back into production as we work to deliver Australia’s largest antimony resource to the global market.”
Larvotto is in a critical phase of the project’s evolution as it moves forward from the ongoing exploration work at the historic Hillgrove site, through to the earliest possible development of start-up mine reserves, mine design, early mining and stockpiling, metallurgical tweaks, plant upgrades and dry tailings storage design and establishment.
The mine looks set to produce about 7 per cent of the global antimony supply, leading to significant employment opportunities for the region.
Larvotto is bringing the project online in a rising antimony market, which is being driven by the increasing use of antimony in solar panel production while production from other global players becomes stressed. This demand-supply trend is expected to continue.
Growing global demand for the critical mineral is also running head-on into China’s recent export restrictions on antimony.
For the first time in Hillgrove’s history, gold and antimony will be targeted with equal priority. The most recent operations at the site were 30-years-ago and focussed on antimony. In the century prior, it was a productive high-grade gold mine.
The co-existence of gold and antimony within the same mineralised zones considerably enhances the current project’s value and sustains Larvotto’s strategy to maximise its returns by concurrently processing both metals.
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