Red River announces first gold pour at Hillgrove Mine in Australia

Red River Resources has announced the first gold pour at its Hillgrove Gold Mine in New South Wales, Australia.

The move marks the completion of commissioning of the Hillgrove Gold processing plant and marks first pour of gold bar in over 20 years at the Hillgrove village.

Red River Resources started production at the gold mine in December 2020 following its acquisition in 2019.

Earlier this year, Red River Resources said that it is ramping up activities at the Hillgrove Gold Mine.

Red River Resources managing director Mel Palancian said: “The start of gold production at Hillgrove represents a material step in our strategy to build a multi-asset operating business focused on base and precious metals.

“Red River completed the Hillgrove Gold Mine acquisition in August 2019 for A$4 million in RVR shares, and we decided that the best way to bring this project back into production through treating material from the Bakers Creek stockpile before resuming underground operations, with methodical permitting, refurbishment and upgrade activities to execute our strategy.”

The company said that it plans to boost the production of gold from the Bakers Creek Stockpile in stage 1 followed by the full restart of underground production in Stage 2 for producing gold, gold concentrate and gold-antimony concentrate.

The Australian mining company said that it has so far mined and processed nearly 18,000 tonnes of Bakers Creek Stockpile through the Hillgrove Plant.

Red River Resources has given a current estimate of 800-1,000 ounces of gold in the circuit.

A Consep Acacia Leach Reactor has also been installed by the company at the mine to maximise gold recovery from the Knelson gravity gold concentrate. The leach reactor is designed to treat gravity gold concentrates.