Coolgardie gold

The Bonnie Vale Gold discovery, that is part of the Coolgardie Gold operation, is located 10 kilometres north of Coolgardie and 35 kilometres west of Kalgoorlie, in Western Australia's gold rich Eastern Goldfields. It is accessed from the Coolgardie North Road and is fully owned by Focus Minerals Limited.

Focus Minerals Limited is the Largest Landowner in the Coolgardie Gold Belt

Focus Minerals Limited is the largest owner of land in the entire Coolgardie Gold Belt, holding more than 450 square kilometres of tenements surrounding to the company's Three Mile Hill gold processing plant. Focus Minerals suspended its Coolgardie gold mining operations in 2013 because of low world gold prices and since that time it has been focusing on further exploration in the wider area around Coolgardie. Its aim has been to grow its near mill gold reserves by finding more large ore bodies containing high grades.

Bonnie Vale Main Quarry Reef Lode Contains 215,000 Tonne Gold Resource

One of these finds has been the Bonnie Vale Main Quarry Reef lode that has been reported to contain a resource with a higher than three grams of gold a tonne cut off. The lode has a total gold resource of 215,000 tonnes grading at 16.9 grams a tonne which will return 117,000 contained ounces of gold. This is made up from an Indicated Resource of 113,000 tonnes containing a grade of 16.8 grams a tonne for 61,000 ounces and an Inferred Resource totalling 102,000 tonnes with a grade of 17 grams a tonne that will recover 56,000 ounces.

Bonnie Vale was Once one of Australia's Largest Gold Producer

The area around Bonnie Vale was one of Australia's largest gold producers from 1894 through to 1911.when it produced 176,883 ounces of gold from an average grade of 16.2 grams a tonne. The underground gold mine at Bonnie Vale, that extended to a depth of 270 metres has had many owners over the years. It was owned by Coolgardie Gold NL during the 1980's. In 1987 the mine was acquired by Goldfan Limited before it was 90 percent acquired by Focus Minerals Limited is 2006 and in 2008 it became wholly owned by Focus Minerals.

New Bonnie Vale Find Part of Westralia Reef

The new highly mineralised reef that has been discovered at Bonnie Vale is all the more interesting in that it is not part of the Main Quartz Reef, it is believed to be an extension of the historic Westralia Lower Quartz Reef. Westralia was always thought to have a strong gold mining potential but because exploration in the area for more than 30 years had been limited to no more than 60 metres in depth it had not been previously discovered.

The Coolgardie Gold, Tindals Gold Mining Centre has been where most of Focus Minerals previous activity has been taking place. This centre includes a large underground mine that had a history of producing 2,500 ounces of gold for every vertical metre mined.

Since 2008, the Coolgardie gold mining operation has produced more than 300,000 ounces of gold and increased its known gold resource in the area by close to 700,000 ounces.