Transvaal mt morgans

Dracian Gold Limited acquired the Transvaal (Mt Morgans) gold ore deposit from Range River Gold , which has had administrators appointed, in January 2012. The Mt Morgans Gold Project is located near Laverton in Western Australia's North Eastern Goldfields.

Gold Discovered at Mt Morgans in 1896
Gold was discovered in the Transvaal (Mt Morgans) area in 1896. Most of
the early mining was conducted as underground operations and up until 1952, 328,000 ounces of gold had been mined from the area. Most of this had been retrieved from the Westralia gold deposit. From 1988 to 1997 the Mt Morgans Mine produced a further 917,000 ounces of gold, this time the main source was open pit mining operations. However, gold mining died out in the area in 1998 after producing 1.2 million ounces, because the world gold price had dropped to below $500 an ounce. The gold processing plant was eventually removed.

Dracian Gold Limited Established to Mine the Transvaal (Mt Morgans) Deposit
The Mt Morgan Mine was owned by Plutonic Resources but taken over by Homestake Mining Company in 1998. Homestake was acquired by Barrick Gold in late 2001 with Barrick selling the Transvaal (Mt Morgans) operation to Range River Gold in 2009. Range River Gold occasioned financial difficulties and soon after the purchase went into voluntary administration. The mine was finally acquired by its present owners, Dracian Gold Limited, in 2012. Dracian Gold is a company specifically formed to re-commence mining of the Transvaal (Mt Morgans) deposit.

Range River Gold was First to Re-start Mining at the Transvaal (Mt Morgans) Deposit
In September 2009, Range River Gold, a South African gold mining company, announced it was going to re-start mining at Mt Morgans with a planned production rate of 40,000 ounces of gold a year, by mining the Transvaal deposit as an underground operation, although there was considerable de-watering and rehabilitation work required on the mines decline. There was also substantial surface infrastructure required to be re- built. In the meantime it planned to reinstate open pit mining of the Ramomie and Craic deposits.

Dracian Gold Formed to Specifically Mine the Transvaal (Mt Morgans) Deposit
The new owner of the Transvaal (Mt Morgans) deposit, Dracian, plans to re-develop the mine as a low cost operation mining more than 100,000 ounces of gold a year. To enable this type of production level to be sustained, the company is focussing on fully exploring the Mt Morgans Project to enable it to add to the known existing gold reserve and resources base. The ore reserve required to justify construction of an on- site gold treatment plant at Mt Morgans would have to deliver a minimum of 500,000 ounces. When Dracian acquired the mine the ore reserve stood at 136,000 ounces of gold grading at 6.2 grams a tonne. It also inherited two developed underground gold mines and certain infrastructure.

Dracian Gold Limited was formed in Australia as a mineral exploration company in 2011 with the focus on acquiring the Mt Morgans mining tenements. The tenements cover a area of 520 square kilometres that contain a mineral resource of 923,000 ounces, grading at 3.1 grams a tonne. Dracian Gold plans to continue a drilling program for the next two years with the purpose of establishing Mt Morgans as a major stand alone gold production centre.
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