Greenpower in old gold mines buy-up

A NEW resources project in North Queensland could be on the cards after Perth-based company Greenpower Energy chose to buy an old gold mine north of Townsville.

Greenpower has bought the former gold-producing mines of Camel Creek, Golden Cup and Big Rush, about 215km northwest of Townsville.

The mines were last operated in the mid 1990s and between them produced in excess of 150,000 ounces of the precious metal.

In an announcement to the ASX this week, Greenpower said it had exercised the option agreement with Q-generate to buy the three gold mines.

Greenpower MD Cameron Mclean said there was work to be done before any of the mines could be brought back into production.

“We have taken into account the environmental issues; this is not a straightforward type of acquisition,” he said.

The company has met with the Department of Environment and Science and Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy to work through issues at the sites.

“We’ve got a good understanding of what we need to do,” Mr Mclean said. “We are looking to get cracking and bring this on as fast as we can.”

Mr Mclean said the rest of the year would be busy for Greenpower as it tried to gain the relevant approvals for the mines.

More drilling will be done at the sites to assess the potential of each mine. Mr Mclean said the initial mining operation was not done at big depths so there was an opportunity for additional production and revenue to come from the site.

Greenpower is a Perthbased battery metals-focused exploration company that has a Townsville presence.

They have a geologist based in Townsville and exploration projects for cobalt near Greenvale and vanadium at Julia Creek.

Mr Mclean would not rule out Greenpower operating the mine themselves in the future or working with a partner.

“I think it will be a combination of talking to other operators about whether we mine it ourselves,” he said. “We will be looking at that over the next three to four months.”

With gold prices at near record highs and the global finance market unstable, investors are rushing to invest in the traditionally stable metal.

Mr Mclean said it was good to be in gold with such high prices for the metal.