Havilah Resources has secured the licences from the South Australian Minister for Energy and Mining.
Three mineral licences (MLs) and two miscellaneous purposes licences (MPLs) were secured for the Kalkaroo project, providing the company the right to mine at the project.
The next step in the permitting process is to secure permissions to mine, for which the company will be required to submit a Program for Environment Protection and Rehabilitation (PEPR) for approval, as required under South Australia’s Mining Act.
Havilah Resources said that it will continue work to finalise the updated prefeasibility study (PFS), due to be completed in the last quarter of this year. Work is also continuing on investigating development opportunities, which includes discussions with potential investment partners.
Havilah Resources CEO Walter Richards said: “The grant of the mining tenements for the Kalkaroo Copper-Gold Project is a significant milestone for Havilah and the result of many years of persistence, dedication and hard work.
“We look forward to progressing the Kalkaroo Project to the next stages of development including the finalisation of the updated PFS.”
The company said that it has been working on the Kalkaroo Project for more than 15 years. Throughout this period, Havilah Resources claims to have added value to the project in order to increase the likelihood of developing the project to attract investment partners who can help bring the project into production.
Havilah started a supplementary metallurgical work programme in July 2018 to improve certain metal recoveries, which could improve the project value.
In December, the company signed the Kalkaroo Native Title Mining Agreement after five years of negotiations, which is claimed to be an important step in the granting of a mining lease.
This month, Havilah Resources released a positive metallurgical test results for the project including more than 90% gold recovery in saprolite gold ore and appreciable levels of gold and cobalt in pyrite concentrates.
