This article is a sponsored feature from Mining.com.au partner Horizon Minerals. It is not financial advice. Talk to a registered financial expert before making investment decisions.
Horizon Minerals (ASX:HRZ) is in expansion mode after earlier this year achieving the important milestones of first gold pour from both its Boorara and Phillips Find projects in Western Australia.
The company timed its start of production well, becoming Australia’s newest gold producer in January as the gold price entered a period of record breaking highs.
The first round of sales from both projects generated around $12.85 million in revenue with 1,675.3 ounces from the Phillips Find achieving $4,728 an ounce and 1,163 ounces from Boorara fetching $4,256 an ounce.
Horizon’s strategy is to generate cashflow by bringing online a series of small-scale mining operations in the Western Australian goldfields and generating cashflow by using third party infrastructure to process its ore. This cash flow will then be used to fund its bigger gold production plans in the region.
Expansion driven by smart mergers
The company was formed from the merger of Intermin Resources and MacPhersons Resources back in June 2019, initially establishing a junior explorer with a resource base of over 1.24 million ounces.
The resources base was expanded to 1.8 million ounces following a subsequent merger with Greenstone Resources in June 2024 that gave Horizon control of a total of 939km2 in the Western Australian goldfields.
These deals provided Horizon with a pipeline of assets it can sequentially bring into production.
Just prior to its merger with Greenstone Resources, Horizon locked down a toll treatment agreement with FMR Investments.
The deal initially only covered the processing of 200,000 tonnes of ore from the Phillips Find Project between February and June 2025.
However, Horizon has since unlocked a further 70,000 tonnes of processing capacity for its ore with a new toll milling agreement reached with Focus Minerals for treatment in September 2025.
This provides additional revenue for the current 2025 financial year, with 80,000 tonnes freed up at FMR Investments with the ore to be processed in April and June.
Horizon also has a fixed ore sale agreement in place for the Boorara Project with Norton Gold Fields’ Paddington mill that will continue into 2026, while the processing of Phillips Find ore will be completed later this year under the current toll treatment arrangements.
The agreement with Norton covers 1.24 million tonnes of ore and Horizon has secured a further 270,000 tonnes of toll treatment processing capacity with two mills in the region.
These agreements represent about a year of production at a processing rate of 1-1.5 million tonnes per annum.
Managing Director Grant Haywood tells Mining.com.au that Horizon has reached steady state production at both Boorara and Phillips Find and he expects the company’s cash balance to build from the June quarter through the rest of 2025.
“These cash flows will support our ultimate goal of being a sustainable, independent mid-tier gold producer with our own processing infrastructure,” he says.
With its start-up strategy now in full swing, the company is focused on establishing its own processing capacity and executed on this in February this year with the completion of the merger with Poseidon Nickel (ASX:POS).
The deal brings Poseidon’s 2.2-million-tonne Black Swan processing plant into the Horizon stable, which the company says is ideally located as a central processing hub for its gold projects as well as for regional toll treatment opportunities.
Refurbishment cheaper than new build
The refurbishment of the front end of the Black Swan processing plant and conversion of the back end to facilitate gold production offers a much faster, lower cost pathway to gold production compared to building a new plant in the region.
The plant has an estimated replacement value of over $150 million, and according to Horizon will only require low capital outlay to refurbish and convert it for gold processing.
The company’s 465,000-ounce Burbanks and 428,000-ounce Boorara gold deposits will be the cornerstone assets in a project pipeline aimed at delivering a five-year mine plan to fill the Black Swan processing plant.
Now that Horizon has built up significant ore stockpiles, the company has begun studies into the refurbishment and conversion of the plant.
“We can do that by using the existing front-end crushing and grinding and then adding a carbon-in-leach circuit to extract gold,” Haywood explains.
“Those studies will be completed by the end of 2025 and, subject to their outcomes, we could be producing gold from our Black Swan plant in the December quarter 2026.”
All of these events have provided Horizon with a production pathway to its target of 100,000 ounces per annum.
Haywood says the 100,000-ounce-per-annum production target is based on the future conversion of Black Swan and therefore is “aspirational” at this stage.
“We’ll need to do the work over the course of the year to be confident to state that as a production target, but we believe we have the foundations in place to get there in time,” he tells this news service.
“The existing front-end capacity we have at Black Swan means there is potentially scope to move above 100,000 ounces per annum should it be supported by our mine plan or third party ore.”
Horizon is planning to generate enough stockpiles to feed Black Swan at a rate of 1-1.5 million tonnes per annum, in line with its current toll treatment agreements.
This means there will be spare capacity available that Horizon could fill via toll treatment agreements with other miners or by acquiring additional projects.
“There are a number of companies in the Goldfields that are in the same position as we were until the acquisition of Black Swan – that is having economic gold deposits which may not have the scale to support a standalone processing facility,” Haywood notes.
“By controlling a new gold processing facility east of Kalgoorlie we believe there will be opportunities to process third party ore or consolidate other assets under our ownership.”
As Horizon builds cash over 2025, it will be looking to retire debt, ramp-up exploration and progress mining and Black Swan refurbishment studies.
Burbanks leads growth charge
The company is aiming to organically grow its resource base to over 2 million ounces by the end of this year through its current drilling plans, which envisage 50,000m of drilling in the 2025 and 2026 financial years.
Key targets for 2025 are Burbanks, the greater Boorara area, greenfields targets near Black Swan as well as Coote, Crake, Penny’s Find and Kalpini.
“Burbanks is a standout target for resource growth and that’s where we’ll be putting the majority of our drilling metres in the next 12 months to support a standalone mine plan,” Haywood says.
The asset was only brought under Horizon ownership in mid-2024 and with the company’s recent focus being on the Poseidon merger and getting Boorara and Phillips Find into production, it has not yet had a chance to put a hole into the asset.
There has been no meaningful resource drilling done at Burbanks since 2022 and the last 10,000m program added 188,000 ounces to the resource, which now sits at 465,000 ounces.
“We’re planning to put about 20,000m into Burbanks in the next two years so we’re very optimistic about what this might deliver in terms of resource growth as we test for high-grade extensions at depth,” Haywood says.
Meanwhile, prior to the merger, Poseidon identified gold potential at Black Swan based on a very limited amount of historical drill assays and a more recent soil sampling program over the area.
Haywood says while it is relatively early days with respect to the potential surrounding Black Swan, there are “several large anomalies parallel to the Mt Monger fault which represent high-quality drill targets for testing”.
“We’ve got a bit more targeting work to do but would expect to put our first holes into this area in the second half of 2025 and that will give us a better idea about future resource potential,” he adds
Write to Angela East at Mining.com.au
Images: Mining.com.au & Horizon Minerals
