Norwest’s Bulgera study gains momentum after strong oxide leach results

Bulgera column tests deliver strong oxide recoveries

Norwest Minerals Limited (ASX:NWM) has cleared a significant technical hurdle at its Bulgera Gold Heap Leach Project, with coarse-crushed oxide material producing total gold extraction of 80% for highly weathered ore and 78% for moderately weathered ore in column tests at ALS Laboratories. The results are important because column testing more closely simulates the conditions of a commercial heap leach than earlier bottle-roll work.

The testwork showed relatively rapid early extraction. The highly weathered composite reached 70% extraction within 25 days, while the moderately weathered material reached 61% over the same period. The tests ultimately ran for 73 and 98 days respectively, with the moderately weathered column taking longer than the initially estimated 70 days. That delay was one reason Norwest pushed back the timing of its Scoping Study.

191,000-ounce resource feeds the economic study

The metallurgical results are being incorporated into a Bulgera study based on a revised resource of 8.7 million tonnes grading 0.68 grams per tonne gold for 191,000 ounces. The resource was reported within an optimised open-pit shell using a gold price assumption of A$5,000 per ounce, with 76% in the Indicated category. The revised Bulgera resource was reported earlier alongside bottle-roll recoveries of 86% for oxide and transition material.

“Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resource relative to the A$5000oz open pit shell.”

“Topographic aerial view of Bulgera Gold Project area, July 2026 showing RPEEE pit shell boundaries in and around the historic mining centre where oxide ore was mined from 1996…”

Caption and image © Norwest Minerals Limited. From “Quarterly Activities/Appendix 5B Cash Flow Report”, 29 Oct 2026.

Orelogy Mining Consultants has now begun optimising the resource model and preparing a preliminary pit design, mining schedule and scoping-level cash-flow and net present value estimates. NewPro Engineers has supplied preliminary processing capital costs and is comparing Australian and overseas equipment fabrication, as well as owner-operated and contract crushing options.

Those comparisons will matter to the project economics, but the company has not yet published the study’s production assumptions, capital costs, operating costs or NPV. Fresh rock also remains a material uncertainty: Norwest has applied a conservative 55% recovery assumption because bottle-roll testing has not yet been completed on that harder, sulphide-bearing material. The company says fresh-rock intermittent bottle-roll results will help refine the study’s process assumptions.

A$1.89 million raise funds the next stage

Norwest completed a partly underwritten entitlement offer during the quarter, issuing 270.4 million shares at A$0.007 each and raising A$1.89 million before costs. The A$1.89 million entitlement offer had been announced earlier to fund Bulgera’s studies and environmental work. The new proceeds are allocated across finalising the Scoping Study, beginning feasibility work, permitting, maintaining other projects and general working capital.

Environmental field surveys completed in July found no listed threatened species, priority ecological communities or other reported environmental impediments within the survey area. That is a favourable input for permitting, but it is not an approval to build or operate the project. Norwest reported no substantive mining production or development activity during the quarter.

Norwest expects to release the Bulgera Gold Heap Leach Scoping Study in November 2026, subject to compliance with ASX requirements covering production targets and financial forecasts. The result will need to show whether the encouraging oxide metallurgy can translate into an economic mine plan once pit design, crushing strategy, capital costs and the unresolved fresh-rock assumptions are brought together.