Commissioners Gold provides the following update on additional potential production ounces attributable to ASX:CGU in upcoming scheduled production from operations in southern Peru.
Plant commissioning is nearing completion after substantial refurbishment works. The Goldsmith plant is comprised of three treatment circuits: two carbon-in-leach circuits (CIL ‘A’ and CIL ‘B’) and a flotation circuit. Current efforts are focussed on getting CIL ‘A’ operational in first instance; CIL ‘B’ shortly thereafter.
Initial models to feed the plant were based on re-treating mine tailings from Santa Rosa under a 50/50 contract with the current owner of the deposit. Under this model, CGU would be attributed with approximately 1,190-1,360 ounces of gold per annum at a throughput of 7,500 tonnes per month. Effectively CGU has only 12.5% interest in Santa Rosa ore.
Higher than expected haulage costs for Santa Rosa have led to a reassessment of this material for bulk feed to the plant. Feasibility studies are in preparation to conduct on-site concentration, which is now seen as necessary to reduce transport costs and significantly increase the profitability of Santa Rosa treatment.
Newly acquired mining projects, Saulito and Eladium, are now scheduled to replace Santa Rosa as feed to the mill in near term production. Time taken to execute and design a mining operations plan for these projects is one of the main reasons for delays in start up to date. The upside for ASX:CGU is that ore from these two mining projects contain higher gold grades, and more importantly, CGU has a greater equity interest (25%) in produced ore compared to Santa Rosa at 12.5%.
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