THoR Mining plc
of Molyhil. The primary site fulfilling this role is Spring Hill, located 150km south of Darwin. Currently, Thor holds 25 percent of the site, with rights to increase this progressively to 80 percent. “Our involvement in Spring Hill commenced in August 2011 and we began exploratory drilling in September, which continued into late November,” says Billing. “There is a historical resource on the site of 274,000oz at a cut-off grade of one gram per tonne. This is a pretty high cut-off grade considering the current price of gold.” The company is now doing its own exploration of the Spring Hill deposit, as technological improvements in the field mean that the workable resource may be larger than estimated during the original studies, which took place in 2003. “Back then, the gold price was about A$400/oz. Now it is over four times that,” explains Billing. “This will of course have a significant impact on the conclusions of any feasibility study. Consequently, we feel very positive about this project and the prospect of bringing it online.” Thor is planning what Billing describes as a “two pronged attack” for Spring hill in the near term. Firstly, the company will continue to carry out drilling
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explorations, as it is expected that the estimation of the resource available will grow. “The old estimation was arbitrarily cut off at 130m below surface as back in those days, that was as deep as one would want to go with a A$400/oz gold price. It now would sustain a deeper open-cut pit.” He goes on to explain that there are also a number of targets to the north and south of the existing resource where are historically attractive intersections. “These have never been followed up, so we think the Spring Hill resource will grow quite quickly.” The second ‘prong’ of attack is securing environmental and regulatory approval. “We think that there is probably sufficient gold there that we could start mining now,” says Billing. “Unfortunately, however, we don’t have the necessary environmental and legal reports and agreements in place yet to begin production. However, once they are completed, we should be ready to get underway shortly thereafter.” Things are also looking up for the Molyhil project too. In