Larvotto’s Hillgrove Project: critical minerals restart lens for mine planners
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on Australian Mining
30 Second Briefing
Larvotto Resources is pushing a rapid restart of the Hillgrove Project in New South Wales, advancing an “advanced critical minerals build” centred on antimony–gold production as Australia moves to secure domestic critical mineral supply. The brownfield site, which retains existing processing infrastructure from previous operations, is being reconfigured to target higher-value critical mineral streams rather than purely precious metals. For geotechnical and mining teams, the strategy points to shorter lead times, heavy reuse of legacy plant, and mine plans optimised around critical mineral ore zones rather than historic pit geometries.
Technical Brief
- Brownfield configuration at Hillgrove retains an existing processing plant, underground mine access and tailings storage.
- Legacy flotation and gravity circuits are being re‑tasked to optimise recovery of antimony–gold concentrates.
- Existing decline and level development reduce new capital for access, ventilation raises and primary ground support.
- Historic stopes and pillars provide detailed geotechnical performance history for current stability and dilution modelling.
- Tailings facilities and waste dumps already permitted on site shorten approvals for additional lifts or expansions.
- Power, water supply and site roads are in place, constraining new layout changes but compressing construction schedules.
- Brownfield critical minerals “builds” like Hillgrove reduce time to first concentrate compared with greenfield equivalents.
Our Take
Larvotto Resources’ Hillgrove Project in New South Wales is already advancing underground development and drilling, as seen in late‑2025 coverage, so any positioning as a ‘critical minerals builder’ is backed by a near‑term production pathway rather than a greenfield concept.
Although Hillgrove is framed here under ‘critical minerals’, related pieces in our database emphasise antimony–gold, suggesting Larvotto may be leveraging antimony’s strategic status to align a traditionally precious/base‑metal style project with Australia’s critical minerals policy settings.
Within the 114 keyword‑matched ‘critical minerals’ items in our coverage, Hillgrove stands out as one of the few antimony‑centric Australian projects, which could give Larvotto a niche advantage when competing for federal support mechanisms such as the $1.2 billion Critical Minerals Strategic Reserve referenced in January 2026 reporting.
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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