Key Highlights

  • All on-ground fieldwork at Majestic North has been completed.
  • Under the revised plan, Stage 1 would mine smaller, shallower pits and sell ore to an existing processing plant.
  • The project sits on Mining Lease M25/369, about 65 kilometres south-east of Kalgoorlie.
  • The JORC 2012 resource is 1.38 million tonnes at 1.14 g/t gold for about 50,300 ounces.

Orbminco (ASX:OB1) has finished all on-ground fieldwork at its Majestic North gold project in Western Australia and has revised its first-stage development plan. Under the new plan, Stage 1 would mine smaller, shallower pits and sell the ore to an existing third-party processing plant, so the company would not need to build its own mill. The update was released on 9 November.

The project sits on mining lease M25/369, about 65 kilometres south-east of Kalgoorlie. It holds a JORC 2012 mineral resource estimate of 1.38 million tonnes grading 1.14 grams per tonne gold for about 50,300 ounces.

What the work covered

Since July 2026, the company says, it has completed resource and sterilisation drilling, drilled hydrogeological bores and carried out baseline environmental surveys. Sterilisation drilling checks that ground set aside for waste dumps, roads and other infrastructure does not cover ore that could be mined later. Orbminco said its geotechnical, hydrogeological and environmental studies have now been finalised.

The company also reported that Majestic North ore is free-milling. In practical terms, this means the gold can be recovered with conventional gravity and cyanide leaching, without the extra cost of treating refractory ore. This matters most when ore is to be sold to another company's mill, because the buyer's plant must be able to process it efficiently.

A smaller Stage 1

The revised Stage 1 plan uses three shallow, higher-grade open pits, mined in sequence from east to west. Chairman Duncan Gordon described it as "a fundable, value-accretive mine plan built around smaller pits". Focusing first on shallower, higher-grade material is meant to reduce the upfront Capital and waste stripping required. Selling ore to a third-party mill removes the cost and lead time of building a processing plant.

The Kalgoorlie region has many operating and idle mills, and small deposits are often developed this way. The trade-off is that the miner depends on the commercial terms offered by mill owners, including price, haulage, processing slots and recovery assumptions.

What still has to happen

Orbminco listed several steps before mining could start. It needs to negotiate ore sale agreements with mill owners, complete desktop optimisation of the pit designs, arrange financing, obtain approvals, make a final Investment decision and lodge a Mining Development and Closure Proposal with Western Australian regulators. Such a proposal sets out how a mine will be built, operated, closed and rehabilitated, and regulators must assess it before mining can begin.

A resource estimate is not a reserve, and the amount of the resource included in the smaller-pit design is not yet known. The project's viability will also depend on gold prices, haulage distances and costs and the availability of mining contractors.

Why it matters

For a company with a modest resource, a lower-capital route to first production can be easier to fund than building a stand-alone plant. With fieldwork and supporting studies complete, the main tests for Majestic North are now commercial and regulatory: whether Orbminco can secure acceptable ore sale terms and approvals for the three-pit Stage 1, and whether it can raise funding on terms that support the board's stated aim of a fundable mine plan.