The Fosterville Mine is a high-grade, low cost underground gold mine, located 20km from the city of Bendigo in the State of Victoria, Australia. The Fosterville Mine features growing gold production at increasingly high grades, as well as extensive in-mine and district scale exploration potential.
Fosterville commenced operation in 2005 and, during its initial years, produced gold from near-surface, low-grade mineralization. A major inflection point was achieved in 2015 with the discovery of the Eagle zone, containing high-grade visible-gold bearing mineralization, which resulted in a significant improvement in the mine's overall Mineral Reserve grade, production profile and unit cost performance. In 2016, exploration work documented similar visible-gold bearing zones at depth in the Harrier zone. Additional exploration progress early in 2017 resulted in new Mineral Reserve and Mineral Resource estimate for the operation being released as at June 30, 2017, which more than doubled underground reserves to 1.03 million ounces (1,790,000 tonnes) and increased the average underground reserve grade estimate by 83% to 17.9 g/t Au. The significant increase in Fosterville Mineral Reserves was supported by down-plunge extensions of the high-grade, visible gold-bearing Lower Phoenix Gold System. In particular, the Swan Zone (previously known as Lower Phoenix Footwall) contributed 532,000 ounces at an average grade of 58.8 g/t Au (281,000 tonnes) to the updated Mineral Reserve estimate.
With continued exploration success over the remainder of 2017, an additional Mineral Reserve and Mineral Resource estimate was released as at December 31, 2017, with Mineral Reserves increasing another 65% from the June 30, 2017 estimate to 1.70 million ounces (2,290,000 tonnes) at an average grade of 23.1 g/t Au, including 1.16 million ounces (588,000 tonnes) of Mineral Reserves in the Swan Zone at an average grade of 61.2 g/t Au. Continued drilling in the Lower Phoenix system during 2018 resulted in another significant increase in the Fosterville Mine Mineral Reserves. Mineral Reserves as at December 31, 2018, increased by a million ounces to 2.7 million ounces (2.7 million tonnes) at an average grade of 31.0 g/t, including a Mineral Reserve in the Swan Zone totalling 2.3 million ounces (1.47 million tonnes) at an average grade of 49.6 g/t.
The mine is located in an area with well-developed infrastructure and is accessible by paved roads. Fosterville’s ore is processed at the Fosterville Mill, a 2,275 tonne per day processing facility.