Auric readies stockpile for second WA Munda gold run

Junior gold miner Auric Mining has wasted no time shaking off the Christmas food coma and is back in the pit again at its Munda gold mine near Widgiemooltha in Western Australia.

With the earthmovers fired up, haulage of fresh ore is now underway from the Starter Pit to Black Cat’s Lakewood mill near Kalgoorlie, as the company lines up a second toll treatment campaign, slated to kick off shortly.

As of the end of December, Auric had already stacked up around 67,000 tonnes of high-grade ore on the run-of-mine pad at Munda. That stockpile will form the backbone of the second processing campaign, which is due to start shortly, with gold sales expected in late February.

The timing of this latest toll treatment run could hardly be better, given gold prices at all-time highs of nearly A$7000 per ounce and seemingly showing no signs of slowing.

For a company of Auric’s size, the next cash splash could be a game-changer. Its first toll treatment run in November delivered 2718 ounces from 57,900 dry tonnes, generating $16.85 million in gold sales and banking $10.82 million in cold, hard cash after costs.

That was back when gold was trading about 13 per cent lower than today, with Auric realising an average price of around A$6200 an ounce. This time around, however, the second campaign is forecast to process 67,000 wet tonnes – about 16 per cent more material – with grades expected to improve. Once you add in a red-hot gold price and an estimated production of 3745 ounces, the upside starts to look very interesting indeed.

With ore already stockpiled on the ROM and processing scheduled to begin later this month, we are now firmly focused on delivering our first cashflows for 2026. Given the current gold price, we expect the cash inflow to be substantial for a Company of Auric’s size.

While Auric’s immediate focus is on extracting value from the Munda Starter Pit, the broader prize is the larger Munda Main Pit, which remains in the company’s sights. By proving up mining, haulage and processing on a smaller scale, Auric says it’s building operational confidence and reducing risk ahead of any expanded development.

Detailed planning and early-stage scoping for the Main Pit have been pencilled in for the first quarter of 2026, with the early numbers appearing to stack up well.

On paper, Auric’s Main Pit already ticks plenty of boxes. The current resource stands at 3.65 million tonnes grading 1.23 grams per tonne (g/t), equivalent to 145,000 ounces at a 0.5g/t cut-off, a solid foundation for a small but profitable operation. Drop that cut-off to 0.2g/t and the ounces balloon to 189,000 across the indicated and inferred categories, underlining just how much life remains in the system.

When Kalgoorlie-based Minecomp crunched the numbers at Munda in 2023, it did so using what now looks like a stone-age gold price of just A$2600 an ounce. Even under those conservative assumptions, the scoping study outlined a 1.716-million-tonne operation at 2.2g/t, capable of generating a healthy A$76.9 million in undiscounted surplus cashflow.

Roll the clock forward to today’s record-breaking gold market and those figures suddenly feel like the dress rehearsal, not the main event.

The company’s measured, step-by-step approach – pulling ore from the starter pit despite its initially higher strip ratio while gold prices are booming – is likely to have struck a chord with a market increasingly wary of juniors charging headlong into big builds without the comfort of early cash flow. Added to that, hiring its own mining fleet and toll treating the material has allowed Auric to sidestep the cost and complexity of owning a mill, instead monetising ore quickly and recycling capital back into the business.

With mining up and running, haulage rolling and processing locked in, Auric appears to be making good on its promise to morph into a sustainable mid-tier gold miner from this year onwards.

In a sector where near-term delivery often separates the winners from the talkers, Munda is shaping up as a timely reminder that small gold miners can still generate value quickly assuming they keep it simple and get on with the job.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@wanews.com.au