core sector communique

Highlights

 

·         Accommodation village and dining catering facility commissioned and fully occupied

·         Process plant civil earthworks nearing completion

·         Over 600m³ of concrete poured

·         Leach/absorption tank construction commenced

·         Refurbishment of plant mechanical components underway

·         Reconditioning of major plant continuing

 Perth based gold developer, Catalpa Resources Limited (ASX:CAH) today provided a market update on construction progress at its flagship Edna May Gold Project, at Westonia in WA.  The fully-funded $92 million project remains within budget, and is on schedule to commence first gold production in mid 2010.

 Accommodation Village

 Catalpa commissioned an 88-room village including kitchen and dining facilities in the town of Westonia in early August. The village is designed to serve as the permanent accommodation for normal operations post commissioning of the mine.

 The village is almost fully occupied at present. Additional accommodation units to allow for peaks in construction will be added to the village over the coming months and removed following commissioning of the process plant. The village management and catering contract was awarded to Cater Care Services in July 2009. 

GR Engineering Services (GRES), the major contractor appointed to refurbish the Edna May Operations gold plant, is well advanced into the construction phase.  

Process plant civil earthworks are also almost complete. The majority of the plant site earthworks including crusher dump pocket, crushed ore stockpile, grinding, leach and absorption, and gold recovery area are now complete and construction has commenced on the raw and process water dams.

The process plant concrete civil works are also well underway with the completion of the leach/absorption tank ring beams, workshop pad, MCC footings and other smaller concrete works. The rafts for both the SAG and ball mills are both well into construction as seen in the foreground of the photograph below. The initial concrete pour for the 3.7 mW ball mill raft was 186 m³ with further above ground ball mill civil works being poured as illustrated in the photograph below.

Leach and absorption tank fabrication has also commenced at the plant site. The concrete ring beams for the foundation of the tanks were poured mid August and can be seen in the background of the photo above. The tank fabrication contractor was mobilised to site at the beginning of August to construct 2 x 2000 m³ leach tanks and 6 x 1,200 m³ absorption tanks.

The refurbishment of motors, pumps, steel and other mechanical equipment is underway. The process plant construction remains on schedule and within budget.   Currently, planning is underway to commence pre-stripping of the existing Edna May open-pit in November.