Alien Metals Ltd, a minerals exploration and development company, has commenced work to re-open the historic underground mine as part of its development of the Elizabeth Hill Silver Project it.
Highlights
- Alien has purchased mining headframe, machinery and equipment to re-open and access the historic Elizabeth Hill silver mine after over 20 years of the mine lying dormant. The previous owner produced over 1 million oz silver with grades of 2195 g/t (70 oz/t).
- Elizabeth Hill is the only pure silver mine in Western Australia set to re-open.
- Re-opening of the existing underground workings will provide access to the unmined orebody in the workings as well as enable detailed mapping and sampling of the orebody to better understand potential extensions.
- It will also enable an opportunity to update the silver resource directly from underground, as well as enabling a significant opportunity to expedite drilling of the polymetallic mineralised halo also from underground.
- Initial assay results from the most recent drilling programme, which intersected visual silver and nickel and copper sulfide mineralisation, are expected during December 2021.
- The original underground mining team has been commissioned and the equipment is en-route to Elizabeth Hill. This commission will include the establishment of an on-site camp.
- Initial planning for technical work, including all necessary permitting and equipment accreditation, is underway.
Bill Brodie Good, CEO and Technical Director of Alien Metals, commented: “We have been very fortunate to both find and secure the services of personnel with previous experience of the Elizabeth Hill Silver Project. This local knowledge will be incredibly valuable during the re-opening work at Elizabeth Hill.
“We have purchased all the necessary equipment to support the mine re-opening, along with a small but fully self-contained field camp. This will give us a terrific on-site platform to plan and carry out work across the local tenements. Ultimately, going back underground presents us with a fantastic opportunity to work on the remaining resource and increase our knowledge and geological understanding of the project.
“We are very excited to see the pending assay results from the last drilling programme and look forward to sharing them with the market soon as we get them.”
As a critical part of the development of this project, Alien have the original miner who carried out the underground development engaged to open up the historic mine. Having been untouched for over 20 years, the initial work needed will be to dewater the mine and then to re-establish the dewatering system that was already in place via the existing steel lined water bores located just north east of the main shaft. A substantial head frame will then be installed over the main shaft to facilitate safe and approved access via a cable system to underground.
Once in place, the cleaning and making safe of the underground workings will be possible. Work has commenced to get the equipment to site and installed and it is hoped that this will be completed and a safe and open underground access by the end of 1Q22.
As part of this programme, an eight-person fully self-contained camp is also being installed on the site to support management and maintenance of the mine once open and also to give Alien a central base from which to work on the mine and close surrounds. This will include the Munni Munni North tenement and the Munni Munni JV project areas as well, increasing fiscal and time efficiency by having teams on site at the heart of the action.
From a technical aspect, Alien is excited to soon be able to map and sample all the underground workings 'from the inside' of the orebody but also hope to be able to do this in a very selective and specific exploratory drilling in-situ, so to speak, underground.