Segilola Gold Project yields promising preliminary results from Definitive Feasibility Study

 

According to the Canadian mineral exploration company, the metallurgical test work programme is well progressed with Independent Metallurgical Operations (IMO) Perth using a representative bulk sample totalling over 500 kg of diamond core. The targeted outcome of the metallurgical test work programme is to optimise the Preliminary Feasibility Study (PFS) process flowsheet, with the expected inclusion of a gravity recovery circuit and investigation of other identified opportunities for process design enhancements.

The probable reserve at Segilola currently comprises 448 000 oz of gold grading 4.2 grams per tonne (g/t) of gold (Au) within a global resource base of 862 000 oz gold.

 

President & CEO of Thor, Segun Lawson, commented: “We are extremely encouraged by these results which have both confirmed our hypotheses and exceeded our expectations. The results confirm substantial gravity recovery is achievable and a significant opportunity exists for optimisation of the process plant, resulting in a reduced operating cost, increased total recovery and improved process efficiency. The results also return a 30% increase in the recovered grade compared to the estimated grade.

 

The DFS work streams we are carrying out on the Segilola Project continue to enhance the project. We look forward to announcing the final metallurgical results and the pending drill results.”

Implications

Data from the metallurgical test work programme suggests that a significant proportion of the gold occurs as coarse particles which will be, most efficiently and economically, recovered by gravity separation.

Although coarse gold is frequently observed in the core, the full impact of the coarse gold on the reserves and, hence, project economics, is now clearly apparent in the bulk sample test work results.

 

There are also indications that there may be an uplift in grade from reserve grade to mined head grade.

Test Work Procedure

The metallurgical test work comprises two basic stages:

• Master composite preparation, characterisation and gravity gold determination: sample is derived from the variability composites.
• Variability testing: 11 variability composites will be subjected to the master composite optimal conditions to determine the impact of different lithological zones and high-grade areas.The variability composites comprised samples from eleven holes distributed both along the strike length and at different levels of the resource.

IMO prepared a master composite sample with a calculated head grade 6.66g/tAu representing the expected average head grade of for the initial 3 - 4 years of open pit operations and mostly from the northern high-grade end of the pit, targeting the initial ore that would be mined and processed during the payback period. The higher-grade ore tested will also result in ensuring that the carbon transfer circuits including elution, etc are sized for the higher gold tenor as carbon movements through CIL can be a limitation to throughput and grade constraints if a process is designed for a lower grade ore.

Read the article online at: https://www.globalminingreview.com/exploration-development/21052018/segilola-gold-project-yields-promising-preliminary-results-from-definitive-feasibility-study/