Kavango Resources has completed commissioning of its 50 tonne per day pilot gold processing plant at the Hillside Gold Project in Zimbabwe, with the facility now fully operational.
The Ministry of Mines & Mining Development granted approval for the commissioning of the Hillside pilot processing plant and its associated tailings storage facility (TSF).
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
This decision followed site inspections and documentation reviews during the last week of October, with both units confirmed to meet required mining, safety, and environmental standards.
The Hillside pilot plant processes gold ore through a combination of crushing, milling, gravity concentration and a carbon-in-leach (CIL) circuit.
Since the start of commissioning, the facility has handled ore from several sources, including run-of-mine (ROM) material, previously stockpiled gold-bearing sands, and freshly milled sands.
Over recent months, gold output increased, with 397g produced during the first elution in August and rising to 539g in September.
Kavango Resources developed the pilot processing plant as a “proof-of-concept operation”, aiming to assess and optimise the company’s processing technology and metallurgical flowsheet.
The resulting operational and metallurgical data is expected to inform the design, manufacture and installation of a future larger commercial-scale plant.
Kavango CEO Jasper Musadaidzwa said: “Achieving statutory commissioning of the processing plant and TSF is a significant milestone for Hillside and an important step towards commercial-scale operations.
“The concept phase plant enables us to optimise processing performance, confirm metallurgical recoveries under operating conditions and further refine our understanding of the orebody ahead of larger-scale development.”
Bill’s Luck, an underground deposit at Hillside, contains a JORC-compliant mineral resource of 33,900oz of gold at an average grade of 2.68 grams per tonne (g/t).
Metallurgical test work on blends of ore from Bill’s Luck and Nightshift achieved laboratory recoveries exceeding 95%, with anticipated operating recoveries from the plant expected to reach between 90 and 93%.
In addition to processing activity, infrastructure development continues at Hillside.
Ongoing projects include installing a 13m headframe at Bill’s Luck Main Vertical Shaft, upgrading power and water supply, planning future exploration programmes, and developing improved accommodation facilities for employees.
In May 2026, Kavango concluded a metallurgical test programme on ore samples from the Hillside Gold Project.
