Bellevue Gold has released its 2023 annual report, which details progress made in areas such as development and exploration, sustainability, and people and culture.
Highlights from the report include the gold mining company recording a lost time injury frequency rate of 1.5, and Bellevue’s workforce being made up of 40 per cent women.
A total of 33.3 per cent of Bellevue’s board is now represented by women and 6.1 per cent of its employees identify as Indigenous.
During the 2023 financial year (FY23), 8.4 kilometres of underground development was completed, along with over 100,000m of underground drilling.
Bellevue also underwent some major leadership changes, with its chief executive officer (CEO) Darren Stralow being promoted to serve a duel role as managing director and CEO and William Stirling being appointed to chief operating officer in March.
The company confirmed that grade control has been completed at the Marceline, Armand and Bellevue South production centres of the Bellevue gold project – with the fourth area at Deacon Main currently scheduled for further drilling in early FY24.
“At the time of writing to you, the project is on schedule for first production in the December 2023 quarter. Given the daily avalanche of headlines concerning massive cost blowouts and delays at resource projects, not to mention shortages of equipment and people, this is an exceptional result,” Bellevue Gold chairman Kevin Tomlinson said.
Tomlinson said the company is proud of the power supply agreement it executed with Zenith Energy in May, which will play a key role in helping Bellevue to achieve its goal of becoming Australia’s first net zero gold producer.
“This hybrid power solution will utilise wind and solar energy as well as thermal generation and battery energy storage,” he said.
“The aim is to meet up to 80 per cent of the project’s power requirements from renewable energy. This will in turn pave the way for Bellevue to market ‘green gold’, a product which we believe has the potential to attract a price premium.”