Marathon completes riskiest part of build

"We've had a great summer. The summer construction season of any build is really important, and it's gone very well for us. We're mining both in the Leprechaun and now also in the Marathon pits, and we passed 3Mt of waste rock mined this summer, which is supporting the construction process. The process plant site and tailings management facility are both now what's called above ground. Those two big areas of technical risk are behind us," Marathon Gold chief executive Matt Manson told Mining Journal.

Marathon is now looking to erect the process plant buildings and have them enclosed before year-end, so that the installation of the plant can proceed in 2024 and be commissioned in the second half of next year. Valentine is due to produce 195,000ozpa during its first 12 years.

The company is also implementing some design modifications to the process flowsheet, although it will still have the same grinding process, gravity and carbon-in-leach. The modifications will cost $30 million and increase the scale of the plant quicker than initially contemplated. Its plan was to start at 2.5Mtpa and then expand to 4Mtpa.

"Our game plan was to start at 2.5Mtpa with a very fine grind. You get a high recovery on that. Then going to 4Mpta allows you to coarsen the grind, and with that coarser product, the regrind and flotation keeps the recoveries up. Through the detailed engineering phase we said let's make sure that grinding circuit will work at 4Mtpa and make sure that it's fully operable. At the back end, we saw some opportunity to go with more and bigger tanks in the CIL leach circuit to get in now and pour the foundations for any future tanks we require. … We're going to be able to get more tonnes in and allow the operators to push in the early days," said Manson.

With a focus on the start of operations coming in 2024, Marathon recently hired mine-building veteran Gil Lawson as COO, to replace Tim Williams, who stepped down for to return to Australia for family reasons.

"I wanted somebody with grey hair who's been there and done that. The future for us is in that [COO] role is really about the second half of the build and operational readiness and starting to think ahead to steady-state operations. Gil has managed four or five mines in his career so he's got that experience of putting together that type of team, and that's what we're looking for now in that role," said Manson.

Funding

With the company soon to publish its September quarter results, Manson would not comment on Marathon's current cash position. The company still has the bulk of the $225 million Sprott loan yet to draw, having only drawn $50 million so far. However, he said that while the company has raised enough money for the build, he indicated it would need to raise more for the start-up period.

"We've raised in total about C$540 million in money that's been raised or committed, for a bill that will be about C$500 million, so that's a bit tight. When we think about the requirements to get us to first cash flow in terms of working capital requirements, so in good time, we'll look to do something else to strengthen that balance sheet a little bit. … We're not talking numbers, or timing," said Manson.

Exploration

Marathon restarted exploration at the project this year, and later this month expects to start a 4000m drilling programme on the Frank target, 1km from the Leprechaun deposit, which could become the third deposit at Valentine.

"With the benefit of the team's understanding on the controls of mineralisation elsewhere in the property, we went back to Frank, did some televiewer surveys down old drill holes, measured the orientations of everything, and realised it is another example of the same mineralising system [as the other deposits]. … We're going for a fourth open-pitable deposit that can feed this mill," said Manson.

Shares in Marathon Gold are trading at 60c, valuing the company at C$241 million.