Key Highlights

  • Norwest Minerals (ASX:NWM) reported column leach gold extraction of 80% over 73 days for highly weathered oxide and 78% over 98 days for moderately weathered oxide.
  • The company expects to complete the Bulgera scoping study in November 2026.
  • No Ore Reserves have been declared and no production target has been defined, the company said.

Norwest Minerals (ASX:NWM) has provided an update on the scoping study for its Bulgera gold project, reporting column leach metallurgical results and saying inputs for financial modelling are now available. The company expects to complete the study next month, which would be November 2026. The announcement contains no resource, production, Capital cost, valuation or gold price figures; the company says those will come in the finished study.

Column leach tests were carried out through ALS and KCAA on two oxide material types. For the highly weathered oxide, the company reported 70% gold extraction in the first 25 days and 80% in total over a 73-day test, with 0.58 g/t gold extracted. For the moderately weathered oxide, extraction was 61% in the first 25 days and 78% in total over a 98-day test, with 1.19 g/t gold extracted.

Norwest attributes the delay to the study partly to the longer leach test, which ran for 98 days against an estimate of 70 days. It also cited equipment sourcing and the assessment of crushing Options as reasons the timetable moved.

Mining and processing workstreams

Mining consultant Orelogy is optimising the gold resource model to determine the economic tonnage to be extracted and processed. That work includes a preliminary pit design, a preliminary Mining schedule and scoping-level cash flows and net present value estimates. None of those values has been released.

Process engineering firm NewPro has prepared preliminary capital cost estimates, previously based mainly on Australian-made equipment including the crusher, and has calculated processing costs per tonne from the run-of-mine pad through to gold production. The company says overseas fabrication and contract crushing were assessed as ways to reduce costs, and that the outcomes of those options will be discussed in the study. No dollar figures were provided for capital or operating costs.

Environmental survey findings

MBS Environmental reported on flora, fauna and vegetation surveys completed by Botanica Consultants in July 2026, with a draft report issued in August. According to the company, the draft found no flora, fauna or vegetation impediments to the project, no threatened or priority species, no Environmentally Sensitive Areas and no Ramsar or nationally important wetlands. Four broad-scale terrestrial fauna habitats were recorded, and no conservation-significant fauna or signs of it were found. The findings are from a draft report.

Limitations and next steps

Norwest Minerals (ASX:NWM) states that no Ore Reserves have been declared and that no production target has been defined, so any references to production or Cash Flow at this stage are conceptual. The leach results come from laboratory column tests.

The company says it will issue updates as each remaining workstream concludes and will release the completed scoping study to the ASX once it is finalised. The next milestone is that release, which Norwest expects in November 2026. The announcement does not quantify the tonnage to be mined, the capital required or the preferred crushing arrangements.