BACK

Orinoco delivers further high-grade samples through hammer mill

12th January 2018

By: Natasha Odendaal

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

     

Font size: - +

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed Orinoco Gold has obtained further high-grade samples from its pilot hammer mill at the Cascavel gold project, in Brazil, as it works towards sustainable and profitable production in 2018.

The most recent batch of six samples milled through the pilot hammer mill returned grades of 9.61 g/t, 39.14 g/t, 8.18 g/t, 33.28 g/t, 60.87 g/t and 69.02 g/t, delivering an average of 36.68 g/t.

This follows the reported 15 samples that graded between 26 g/t and 149 g/t, bringing the total average grade from the combined total of 21 samples to 45.19 g/t.

The results continued to support the notion that Cascavel had the potential to be a high-grade, low-cost mine, said COO Richard Crew in an update to shareholders over the group’s “back-to-basics” strategy, which was currently under way.

“With mining on the Northern zone restarted and a decision on Cuca likely by the end of January, Orinoco could potentially have four sources of high-grade underground feed for its much larger hammer mill(s) by the second quarter of 2018,” he said on Friday.

The 'back-to-basics' approach has returned the company to more “traditional” routes of milling its ore, with initial results showing that the recovery and grade can dramatically improve when it is not processed in the current gravity recovery plant.

Orinoco also purchased a new low-cost 400 kg/hr hammer mill, which is currently being installed to reprocess a series of bulk samples of previously processed material and further enhance its bulk sampling programme.

“The hammer mill in its current configuration gives a much finer grind than the currently installed comminution circuit thus liberating a finer gold fraction. Results from these tests will be published within the next 15 days. If they prove to be successful, this could be another source of mill feed,” Crew explained.

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

Comments

The login details you entered is incorrect. Please try and re-enter your username and password. If you continue having problems, please contact us at subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za for assistance.

If you are not a subscriber, you can subscribe now, by selecting one of the below options.

R/€ = 20.4116 Change: -0.0199
R/$ = 18.9400 Change: 0.0062
Au 2232.75 $/oz Change: -0.28
Pt 908.05 $/oz Change: 11.10