Great Western Mining Corporation Plc (LON:GWMO, Euronext Growth – 8GW), which is exploring and developing gold, silver and copper targets in the Walker Lane belt of Nevada, USA, has provided the following update on its Western Milling joint venture.
· Mill site construction substantially complete
· Environmental permits in place and confirmed
· State Mine Inspection clears path for start-up
· Proposed upscaling for commercial gold production
Great Western Mining Chairman Brian Hall commented: “The price of gold has never been higher than it is today. The Western Milling Joint Venture began as a very low-cost project to process its partners’ own material and has achieved a great deal with limited funds, despite frustrating delays. Initial trial production could begin at any time but, to become an effective and significant revenue generator, we now consider that Western Milling’s capacity should be expanded with external finance and independent engineering and we are in early-stage discussions to achieve this.”
Great Western is a 50% party to the Western Milling LLC joint venture, which has been created to construct and develop a mill for processing gold and silver from mine waste and shallow ore deposits, based at Sodaville, just south of Mina, Mineral County, Nevada and adjacent to state highway 95. Muletown Enterprizes LLC., a Nevada-based mining contractor, holds the other 50% in Western Milling and owns the mill site and the water rights, which it provides to the joint venture for a nominal rental. The joint venture was formed primarily to process mine waste which is available on claims held by Great Western and on patented land owned by an affiliate of Muletown.
Construction of the mill site was substantially completed in late 2024 resulting in an impressive structure, on a site which will allow for expansion of processing capacity beyond the needs of the joint venture partners for their own material. It has now been prepared for trial production, involving a single gravity circuit.
On the advice of the Nevada State Inspector of Mines following a visit in January this year, the mill is now ready to start trial production subject to minor modifications and final hook-up. Muletown has been responsible for a competent construction job, although this has taken longer than originally anticipated, in part due to incorporating features which would allow for expanded operations at a later stage. However, due to ongoing contractual commitments, the small Muletown team has not had the capacity to begin non-stop operations at the mill, while ‘stop-start’ operations would be expensive and inefficient, yielding no meaningful returns for shareholders in the short term.
Given the prevailing record price of gold, the absence of any other commercial milling operation in the locality and a number of recent approaches from other local claim owners with available material, the joint venture partners are planning to expand the Western Milling project. This will require some third-party financing and the introduction of a specialised mine engineering company with the relevant expertise and a proven track record to upscale the mill and bring it on to full commercial production.
The Company is in early-stage discussions with financing parties and has identified and received initial proposals from two mine engineering houses with the right qualifications to manage this phase and subsequently monitor commercial operations.
The Board of Great Western Mining considers that third party financing and the introduction of a dedicated, specialist team for the project will accelerate the expansion of the mill’s operational capacity to generate meaningful gold revenues without further recourse to shareholders for this purpose, enabling the Company to remain focused on its highly promising copper projects and gold exploration prospects.
