Mount Morgan mine hoped to be operational by 2023 and will employ 150 people

Heritage Minerals plans to start construction on $100m new processing plant at the end of the year with the ambitious plan to create about 150 jobs.

Heritage Minerals at Mount Morgan mine.

Work at Mount Morgan’s retired gold mine could be secured for the next 100 years if Heritage Minerals can pull off their ambitious plan.

The Western Australian company took over the site in mid-2020 and were last week given a tick of developmental approval by Rockhampton Regional Council.

Heritage Minerals CEO Malcolm Patterson said this approval was a quite an important step and good milestone to reach.

“The approval is just one step of many we have to do t0 get this thing moving,” he said.

“The approval is an endorsement from Rocky council for the project.”

The approval sought a number of changes from the previous owner’s, Carbine Resources, plans as explained in a story The Morning Bulletin published last week.

Heritage Minerals have taken out the production of pyrite, which Carbine Resources had focused their plans on.

“We took a different approach … Carbine was struggling because the gold and copper price was not so great for them … so they added in by products, one of which was pyrite,” Mr Patterson said.

“We decided we are going to focus on gold and not worry about all these other bits and pieces and simplify the whole operation.”

They have also doubled the size of the project, going from 1Mt to 2Mt per year.

“We knew we could do that because we had a simpler plan,” Mr Patterson said.

“We have the same capital cost as Carbine even though we have doubled the size, because we simplified the whole thing.”

Locals are doubtful around the project as Heritage Minerals are now the sixth company in the last 30 years to get the mine up and running.

Mr Patterson openly agreed there is scepticism but it hasn’t buoyed his confidence.

“We have spent the last two years doing test work, drilling, re-evaluating,” he said.

“Mount Morgan is not a mining project, it has already been mined, the focus is on processing.

“And that has always been the Achilles heel of this project, people have not founds ways of processing this material economically.”

Being a private company means they don’t have to focus on the stock exchange and publications.

“We are lucky in some ways because we are a private company, we don’t have to be out there telling the world how good we are, we just go along below the radar, just plotting along and not trying to get expectations up too high until we have it actually up and running,” he said.

“We want to keep private, we have some financially healthy shareholders that are part of this.”

Construction of a $100 million processing facility is hoped to begin by the end of this year.

Between now and then, the company will focus on securing funding and getting all of the permits in place.

“The environmental one will be hardest one to get because it can drag on,” Mr Patterson said.

“We are a bit of an odd case too because we are working with a site that is environmentally a disaster but we are going to improve it and the Department and Environment Science rules are based on normal projects.”

The brand new processing plant is to process the tailings and recovering the gold and copper.

It is expected to take 12 months and will employ around 80 people, most of which will be from the local region.

A full range of workers will be needed from earthwork contractors, civil, mechanical and electrical emittance.

Operations are hoped to begin in 2023 and they plan to employ 150 people once operational.

“We have a long-term vision for this project, in fact we can think we can be there past my time … for 100 years,” Mr Patterson said.

“The feasibility is only done for six years, that just gets us up and running but we know we have another 15 years after that, then another 45 years after that.

“It’s all long term.”

Originally published as Mount Morgan mine hoped to be operational by 2023 and will employ 150 people