The roughly 220g ingot came after mining started at the operation and the first gold concentrate was processed at Austar's nearby Morning Star operation.

The RoD ore was initial stockpiled at the mine but is now being trucked to Morning Star.

The average throughput rates for the softer RoD material are higher than the Morning Star gold mine material processed previously.

The gold mineralisation at RoD contains both coarse particles of free gold and other gold that is intimately associated with sulphide grains.

This is resulting in a high grade concentrate of sulphide and gold, some of which needs further refining to fully recover the gold, as well as a portion of free-milling coarse gold.

Mining is continuing without compromising future access along the main adit level at RoD.

There are four zones targeted for mining based on recent diamond drilling with three initially being developed using traditional handheld mining.

Handheld mining allows each development advance to be closely sampled, assayed, photographed and geologically mapped.

This allows Austar to identify both the geological and metallurgical characteristics of the ore type to get a better understanding of the conversion of drilling results to mined grades.

The plan is to continue mining and processing RoD material into the future as quickly as possible with the appropriate permitting to allow a mechanised mining system to be undertaken.

This first phase of mining is expected to take two to three months.