Breathing New Life into Australia’s Historic Hill End Gold District

Hill End’s story

Gold was discovered in this area in Central-Western New South Wales in 1851 when there was almost nothing there, just a hotel and two stores. Hill End turned into a significant alluvial gold-mining precinct at a location called Tambaroora, where some tens of thousands of Europeans and Chinese worked the gravels.

It has been conservatively estimated that the alluvials yielded some 800,000 ounces of fine gold.

In October 1872, the Star of Hope Gold Mining Company discovered the Holtermann’s nugget, the largest specimen of reef gold ever found. It weighed 286 kilograms and measured 150 centimetres by 66 centimetres, with an average thickness of 10 centimetres. (It’s not actually a nugget, but a quartz specimen infused with veins of gold.

That discovery, plus other active mining operations — including the Hawkins Hill mine, which yielded 435,000 ounces at 309 grams per tonne — caused the population of Hill End to soar, becoming one of the largest inland towns in New South Wales. The entire goldfield region was estimated to be home to 30,000 people at one point.

The boom town went bust by 1874, with much of it closing down and the population declining into the hundreds over the next few decades. In the 1920s, mining activity returned briefly to the region.

During its heyday, Hill End yielded 50 tonnes of gold. Today, Hill End remains an illustrious region known for its untapped potential.

A return to Hill End

One company believes Hill End’s gold story is far from over.

Vertex Minerals (ASX:VTX) is resurrecting operations at the Reward gold mine, part of its Hill End project. Production is scheduled to commence in 2025, with a resource estimated at 485,000 ounces of gold. The company has tenure over 155 square kilometres of land, seven granted exploration licences, one gold lease and 10 mining leases.

Vertex’s Hill End project comprises three assets — Reward, Red Hill and Hargraves — with a combined mineral resource of 4.21 million tonnes of gold. The Reward mine alone has an indicated resource of 141,000 tonnes at 15.5 grams per tonne gold for 71,000 ounces of contained gold, and 278,000 tonnes at 17.3 grams per tonne gold for 155,000 ounces of contained gold in the inferred category.

According to Roger Jackson, executive chairperson of Vertex, the benefits of working on a well-developed historical mining site are many. Reward has significant underground development with some $25 million already spent on an air intake shaft, a 1 kilometre adit and mine development access to high-grade gold stopes. Reward also has a gravity gold-processing plant that can recover uniquely 92 percent of the gold by simple gravity means. Vertex is in the process of upgrading this plant and adding an ore sorter into the flow sheet with expected exception results.

“All the environmental footprint has already been stamped on the location. We understand the geology, we understand the metallurgy,” said Jackson.

A modern approach

“The Reward mine has the potential to grow to a significant size due to the near-mine potential of further high-grade ore to be drilled and resourced. The Reward resource is only drilled to about 100 metres below the amalgamated adit, so (with) further drilling below this is likely to be fruitful,” added Jackson.

Developing and restarting the Reward mine is just part of Vertex’s plans for Hill End, which include reinstalling a refurbished 110,000 tonne per year Gekko gravity gold plant and commencing gold production from existing stockpiles. The company also plans to increase Hill End’s high-grade resource through further exploration and drilling.

The company has just purchased its own drill rig so it can maintain a focused, constant, long-term drilling effort to build on the high-grade gold inventory.

Current approaches to mining and extraction, meanwhile, can one-up historical processes to be more ecologically aware. The use of gravity separation for processing ore at the Reward mine will lead to high-grade gold with a low-cost process that will be far less environmentally concerning than methods used at most facilities. Gravity technology uses the natural force of gravity to separate valuable minerals from waste material, and minimises the use of harsh chemicals in the process. This method is particularly effective for gold extraction in unique gold ore like the Reward.

Investor takeaway

Revitalising historic mining facilities comes with many benefits for companies and their investors. These former producers are more straightforward to develop due to existing resources and infrastructure, and can offer a more cost-effective mine restart and significant potential for near mine resource expansion through exploration.

This INNSpired article is sponsored by Vertex Minerals (ASX:VTX). This INNSpired article provides information which was sourced by the Investing News Network (INN) and approved by Vertex Mineralsin order to help investors learn more about the company. Vertex Minerals is a client of INN. The company’s campaign fees pay for INN to create and update this INNSpired article.

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