Pacgold set to reboot South Australian mine for 2026 first gold pour

Pacgold Limited is set to reboot gold leaching at its White Dam gold project in South Australia, following final approvals for the resumption of irrigation at the historic heap leach operation.

The company says it has received the green light from the Department for Energy and Mining to fill its freshly lined gold-pregnant leach solution (PLS) pond, with irrigation and dripper lines ready to roll.

Pacgold has now turned over run-of-mine material on its heap leach pad, setting the stage for full-scale leaching of remnant gold before the new year.

The company has also put a heavy-duty 120-tonne excavator to work, flipping more than 500,000 tonnes of original ore on the pad’s first lift, as part of plans to aerate and expose material that might still contain unleached gold from its Vertigo pit.

Management expects the pad turnover to be a straightforward and low-cost exercise to gauge recovery potential from the existing stack. Meanwhile, the drill bit is spinning hard at the company’s Vertigo pit, where 2700 metres of a 25,000-metre program is already in the bag.

Pacgold says assays are due mid-January after the holiday break, with 7,000 m of the drilling campaign slated to upgrade its existing inferred resources to the indicated category.

The company says the resource upgrade will sharpen plans for 2026 and potentially increase production output down the line.

Another key milestone has been achieved in returning White Dam to full production with the approval to utilise our newly relined PLS pond, irrigation of the pad can now recommence at full scale. Approximately 500kt of ore on the northern edge of the pad will be turned over and aerated as a trial to give PGO an indication of the potential quantities of extractable gold that remain in the pad overall.

White Dam, parked just 80 kilometres west of the famed Broken Hill mining town, has a storied history as a proven heap-leach setup. From 2010 to 2018, it pulled out some 180,000 ounces of gold before closure, with the site still packing a 4.6-million-tonne resource grading 0.7 grams per tonne (g/t) gold for 102,000 ounces of the precious metal. That resource doesn’t include the residual metal in the existing pads that are primed for re-treatment.

The company says the camp expansion is also underway, with three extra accommodation units slotting in to bolster the crew as operations ramp up.

Pacgold says the restart is leaning on existing gear, with only a modest $600,000 outlay required to unlock quick cash at the project.

The company’s timing could not be sharper, with a white hot gold market on the hoof again, currently trading at almost A$6600 per ounce and seemingly on its way to testing new highs.

Cash from the South Australian production play is set to feed Pacgold’s exploration push at its 854,000-ounce Alice River gold project and the company’s recently fast-tracked St George gold-antimony ground, both in Queensland.

Recent rock chips at St George peaked as high as 52.7 per cent antimony and 10.2g/t gold, prompting a maiden drilling program on the prospect, now underway.

With irrigation firing up and the drill rods turning, White Dam is eying first gold pours for the new year, setting up cash to fuel exploration across the board.

As 2026 dawns, Pacgold stands ready for fully funded fresh discoveries in both states, with the company currently in trading halt ahead of anticipated exploration results from its St George gold-antimony project.

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