Barton Gold’s Tunkillia project in South Australia is projected to achieve total payback within 13 months of start-up, according to an optimized scoping study. This improvement over the initial study, which estimated a 22-month payback, is driven by material efficiencies and favorable commodity prices. The updated study anticipates a project life of approximately 10 years, including construction, with an eight-year life-of-mine focused on processing higher-value mill feed.
Key efficiencies include a $35 million reduction in capital expenditure, down to $399 million, and up to 35% lower comminution power costs for oxide and fresh materials. The project is expected to produce an average of 120,000 ounces of gold and 250,000 ounces of silver annually. The life-of-mine estimates, based on gold revenues between $4,000 and $5,000 per ounce, include an average all-in sustaining cost of up to $2,222 per ounce of gold and total revenues ranging from $3.9 billion to $4.8 billion. The study anticipates a pre-tax net present value of between $781 million and $1.4 billion, underpinning a 73.2% internal rate of return.
The company expects a higher-grade Stage 1 ‘starter pit’ to produce approximately 206,000 ounces of gold and 491,000 ounces of silver, generating $825 million in free cash or $4,003 per ounce of gold at current market prices. Barton acquired the Tunkillia project in December 2019, identifying significant growth potential. Since then, multiple drilling rounds and resource estimate updates have been conducted, culminating in the current optimized scoping study.
According to Barton managing director Alex Scanlon, the study has delivered significant gains for the company. The energy savings and higher oxide recoveries, combined with elevated gold prices, demonstrate the financial leverage available to large-scale processing. He also noted the ‘starter pit’ alone could pay back more than twice the upfront capital costs within the first 13 months.
