Brightstar’s Laverton gold hub: 1.5 Mtpa mill upgrade insights for mine planners
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on Australian Mining
30 Second Briefing
Brightstar Resources is upgrading its legacy Beta mill near Laverton into a 1.5 Mtpa gold processing hub, targeting ore from its Cork Tree Well, Menzies and Laverton projects in Western Australia’s north-eastern Goldfields. The refurbishment includes modern gravity and CIL circuits, new crushing and screening equipment, and structural repairs to the existing plant rather than a greenfield build. For mine planners and process engineers, the hub-and-spoke model reduces haul distances to a central mill and enables staged feed blending from multiple open pits and underground sources.
Technical Brief
- Refurbishment scope includes structural steel repairs, tank relining and replacement of corroded walkways and platforms.
- Mechanical upgrades cover overhauls to existing mills, pumps and agitators rather than full equipment replacement.
- Electrical and control systems are being modernised with new MCCs, cabling and plant-wide instrumentation upgrades.
- Brownfield works must tie into existing foundations and footings, constraining layout changes and crane access.
- Refurb programme is sequenced to allow staged commissioning of crushing, grinding and leach circuits.
- Reuse of existing civil works and services materially reduces upfront capex versus a comparable greenfield build.
Our Take
A 1.5 Mtpa processing hub at Laverton positions Brightstar Resources alongside other mid-tier Australian gold operators that rely on centralised mills to unlock stranded or smaller satellite deposits, which can materially improve project economics without greenfield plant capex.
Gold is one of the most heavily covered commodities in our mining database, and the presence of price-focused pieces such as the recent record-high gold and silver coverage suggests that any sustained price strength would disproportionately enhance the value of refurbished assets like the Beta mill compared with higher-capex new builds.
In Western Australia, similar legacy-mill upgrade strategies have often shortened development timelines and permitting risk for gold projects, implying that Brightstar’s approach at Laverton could accelerate cash flow relative to peers pursuing entirely new processing infrastructure.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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