Northern Star Resources Limited (ASX: NST) has entered into agreements to purchase the Millrose gold project from Strickland Resources Ltd (ASX: STK).
The total consideration payable by Northern Star under the agreements is $67 million including 1.5 million fully paid ordinary Northern Star shares to be issued to Strickland at completion (subject to 12 months’ escrow).
The Millrose project has a published Mineral Resource of 346koz gold at a grade of 1.80g/t and offers significant geological upside, both laterally and at depth.
Located 40km east of Northern Star’s Jundee operations, Millrose is anticipated to be a supplementary feed source for the Jundee mill in the medium term, complementing Jundee’s underground base load. Jundee is a key asset in Northern Star’s Yandal Production Centre.
“The acquisition of the Millrose gold project presents a very compelling development opportunity that is accretive to the Jundee life-of-asset plan as it should deliver us a sizeable low-cost, high-grade supplementary resource feed,” Northern Star managing director Stuart Tonkin said.
“This bolt-on acquisition, which also comes with significant brownfields exploration upside, will provide us with further confidence to plan organic and profitable growth for Jundee, which already is the lowest cost asset in our tier-1 portfolio.”
Northern Star has also entered into a long-term power supply agreement with Zenith Energy for supply of electricity to Jundee, incorporating 40MW of wind and solar generation.
Jundee will have wind, solar and battery installed and integrated into the existing gas power station network. The renewable generation being added includes 24MW of wind, 16.9MWp of solar and 12MW / 13.4MWh of battery energy storage. This will provide 56 per cent of the mine site’s power based on current modelling.
Northern Star has committed to reducing its carbon footprint by 35 per cent by 2030. The Jundee operation was identified as the next one in Northern Star’s asset portfolio to target material reductions in carbon emissions following the successful introduction of solar at Carosue Dam.
The planned reduction of 32,500 tonnes of CO2-eq by FY24 was improved 60 per cent to an estimated 52,000 tonnes reduction of CO2-eq per annum, with solar to be commissioned in late 2023 and the wind commissioning scheduled for mid to late 2024.
