Just to add to that. When the Morningstar mine was operating decades ago grades of 15g/t would have been considered uneconomic (low gold prices at the time). So a lot of gold zones that today are potentially economic have been left behind by the old timers.
The zone they are targeting now for trial mining is the Stacpoole zone, which for various reasons was left untouched even though it has been known and mentioned in historical mine reports. The bonus is the Stacpoole zone is near surface, close to the adit entrance, and on the side of the dyke bulge that has historically produced the largest and highest grade gold zone.
This zone is now exposed in two areas and they have started taking face samples to help decide the best sections to start trial mining. I am guessing they want to start trial mining on a particularly high grade zone so that first asx ann with trial mining production results is going to put a booster rocket under the sp.
A key development decision imo for Morningstar mine will be the development of a decline. The economics of underground gold mining by decline development are a big improvement over adit and shaft developement. More mechanised mining can occur at lower cost and higher volumes.
The new management of AuStar could have really hit the jackpot by taking the time to re-think the geological model at Morningstar to identify the shallow Stacpoole reef as driving a decline to Stacpoole is finacially achieveable for the company at this early stage of mining/cash flow. Previous management and previous owners were targeting first off much deeper zones which would not imo supported the cost of building a decline so deep before they hit payable zones.
Very impressed with the new management team so far. It seems they will pull off the tricky task of getting Morningstar to pay its own way and then some.
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