Star of Mangaroon–Paulsens tie-up: design and planning notes for mine engineers
Reviewed by Joe Ashwell

First reported on Australian Mining
30 Second Briefing
Black Cat Syndicate and Dreadnought Resources have signed a binding operations agreement to develop, mine and process the high-grade Star of Mangaroon gold deposit through Black Cat’s 450,000tpa Paulsens processing plant in Western Australia. The deal gives Dreadnought a low-capex processing route via existing underground infrastructure and permitted tailings at Paulsens, while Black Cat secures additional high-grade feed to improve plant utilisation. Geotechnical and mine planning teams will need to integrate Star of Mangaroon’s orebody geometry, ground conditions and haulage logistics with Paulsens’ established stoping and backfill systems.
Technical Brief
- Similar hub-and-spoke arrangements in Western Australia are increasingly used to monetise remote high-grade satellite deposits.
Our Take
The focus on the Star prospect alongside the Paulsens gold mine aligns with the 45 per cent jump in Australian gold exploration spending noted in the 2 December 2025 item, signalling that juniors like Black Cat Syndicate and Dreadnought Resources are likely benefiting from stronger budgets for both greenfields and near-mine drilling.
Within our 122 Mining stories, gold in Australia features heavily in greenfields and brownfields work rather than new large-scale build decisions, suggesting Star’s progress could be more about fast-tracking feed options for existing infrastructure such as Paulsens than about a standalone development in the near term.
For contractors tracking Projects and Contract Award-tagged work, the combination of a historic asset like Paulsens with a satellite target such as Star typically translates into staged drilling, resource definition and small-scale development packages rather than a single large EPC, spreading opportunity across multiple specialist service providers.
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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