Greatland Gold PLC (AIM:GGP, OTC:GRLGF) recently provided an updated reserve and development outlook for the Telfer gold-copper mine in Western Australia.
The company said the reserve now stands at 712,000 ounces of gold and 23,000 tonnes of copper. This complements a previously announced 3.20 million ounce resource. Including Havieron, total gold endowment now exceeds 10.10 million ounces.
Greatland highlighted that the update supports continuity of operations at Telfer as Havieron is brought online. It noted that the reserve estimate was delivered just five months post-acquisition and within four weeks of the resource statement.
Managing director Shaun Day joined the Proactive studio, here we take a closer look at what was said.
Proactive: Shaun, it's good to see you.
Shaun Day: Thanks for having me on Proactive for what's been a busy week for Greatland.
Proactive: Busy week indeed! So let's talk about that. You've released that Telfer ore reserve at 712,000 ounces of gold, 23,000 tonnes of copper.
Talk us through the work that delivered this result in such a short time.
Shaun Day: Huge amount of work. And really, the goal here was to demonstrate that Telfer life continues well into the production of, or bringing, Havieron, the new high-grade asset, online.
This is really built on the back of Michael Thompson and his team that put together the 3.2 million ounce resource that we announced, I think, about four weeks ago.
And then Otto Rich, head of mine planning, has put this reserve together. Really just five months since acquisition, but just four weeks after that resource came out.
So it hasn't got everything, we think there's more we can continue to add, but it demonstrates there's no gap. There's extension of Telfer.
We think it's a really good snapshot in time. And with the ASX prospectus coming out soon and the SRK reporting that, we were trying to capture that information now and share it with the market.
So you're not flicking to page 450 of the prospectus to find new information.
Proactive: And we'll talk about the outlook and feasibility study in a second. But you've got the two-year outlook to extend the dual train production to FY27. Can you talk me through that?
Shaun Day: We've just focused on these initial two years again to demonstrate there's no gap out to Havieron.
I think that's the first milestone we wanted to achieve. Again, done in an extraordinarily short period of time. But I think that's just reflective of the endowment at Telfer. But importantly as well, not only does it show a really good production profile - we also think we can continue to add to it.
This is a snapshot in time, as I said, to get it out ahead of the prospectus.
But we think we can continue to add to it in the back half of this year and indeed calendar year 2026.
And importantly, already you can see there's still 19 million tonnes of stockpiles at surface at the end of this two years, plus stage seven of the West Dome open pit continues.
So two years is just our overview period. We're not saying it's two years at Telfer. Clearly there's more to come.
Proactive: I think it's important to note here, the production and cost benefits as well once Telfer and Havieron have integrated.
Shaun Day: Havieron is about five times higher grade than the Telfer open pit.
So when that comes in, you should see a step change both in ounces produced being higher but also costs being lower.
Remember, Havieron is globally lowest quartile. And certainly on the ASX will be the lowest or perhaps second lowest mine listed. So it's a tremendous platform.
The endowment there, it's running plus 9,000 ounces per vertical metre in that top part of the ore body and almost 8,000 ounces across a full kilometre of vertical extent.
So Havieron’s a really unique ore body. And when we bring that on, it really augments that Telfer infrastructure.
We ultimately run a single mine. It just incorporates Telfer open pit, Telfer underground, and the Havieron underground to make it better.
Proactive: So just on that point, Shaun. You’re targeting a higher mining rate of 4 to 4.5 million tonnes per year. I'm sure that'll be integrated into the feasibility study. So what are you looking at with this feasibility study?
Shaun Day: Yeah. Look, the real kicker in this announcement is that increase, expansion, of Havieron.
Again, beautiful asset. High grade, low cost. And by taking this from the 2.8, we're now adopting a study to try to take this to 4 to 4.5 million tonnes per annum.
That's a 40% to maybe 60% increase in the size of Havieron. And remember, we already have the bitumen road plan back from Havieron onto Telfer.
We have the milling capacity in place. So this extra tonnage will be hugely economically advantageous. And when we look at this, we think about it then being done with a conveyor.
That will be subject to the final outcome of that feasibility study, which will be announced in the second half of this year. But that's what we've adopted. And yeah, conveyors are great, good ESG, but even better economically.
So we really like that around building Havieron as the mine for the future.
Proactive: So just finally, Shaun, overall opportunities. Can you talk me through what they are and the expectations?
Shaun Day: Yeah. We came out with this resource after 3.2 million ounces plus 117,000 tonnes of copper. Together with Havieron, that takes us north of 10 million ounces.
So big endowment. Today, we increased the reserve to complement that.
We demonstrate that Telfer reaches out to Havieron. And then it’s exciting about what the step change looks like when you're operating both together in due course. But of course, we get to continue to add resource.
We think we can continue to add mine life at Telfer. And then look at the optimization options, particularly as we bring in higher grading. That’s typically associated with more ounces, lower cost. And one of the real prizes in the portfolio already is the second drive we’re doing out to West Dome Underground, which I think reflects some conviction we have there.
So we're excited. Increasing the number of drill rigs, trying to focus on productivity. And yeah, hugely grateful for the team at Greatland and the team out at the Telfer site for all the hard work they're doing.
There's a beautiful set of numbers I'm able to present, and that’s their hard work. The team is really humming right now.
Proactive: Yeah Shaun, you’ve achieved plenty in a short amount of time. And I'm sure there's plenty more to achieve as we move forward. Thanks for your time.