ASX-listed Classic Minerals has successfully commissioned its Australian-designed “Gekko” mobile processing plant in a key step towards producing gold from its Kat Gap gold project south of Southern Cross in WA by August this year. Classic has a granted mining lease and circa-93,000 ounce JORC gold resource at Kat Gap.
It is waiting for final government approvals to start processing once the plant arrives on site.
Testing and commissioning of the Gekko plant on small ore parcels from Kat Gap was independently undertaken by JT Metallurgical Services. Previous metallurgical testwork returned 95-96 per cent recoveries on fresh and oxide ore samples via gravity and standard cyanide leach processes.
As part of the testing, small parcels of ore were processed at a Perth test site with JT instrumental in finalising process design, together with an electrical load study and mass/water balance work to optimise gold recovery
The unique low-energy modular Gekko gravity and leach recovery plants produced by Victoria-based Gekko Systems have been used to recover gold and other minerals around the world.
Classic Minerals Chairman, John Lester said: “This is yet another key milestone achieved by the management and operations team of Classic Minerals required to formally transform Classic from an explorer to a miner. We remain on track to construct and mine at full capacity by the end of July 2021.”
The processing plant has a 30 tonne per hour capacity with capability to be scaled up to 250 tonnes per hour.
Kat Gap, 170km south of Southern Cross, boasts an initial 92,869-ounce inferred resource going 2.96 gram per tonne gold within a 5km-long geochemical anomaly. Class says about half the anomaly has been tested with reverse circulation drilling. A further 5km of prospective granite-greenstone contact to the west of Kat Gap has seen little or no exploration, the company says.
Previous drilling by Classic has delivered some head-turning hits at Kat Gap including 4m going 76 grams per tonne gold from 79m, with a 1m interval at a bonanza 304 g/t gold.
Other shallow, bumper-grade intercepts include 3m at 62.1 g/t gold from 36m and 10m at 30.77 g/t gold from just 28m depth.
With the gold price surging, Classic’s adoption of a rapid, low-cost mining and production model for Kat Gap looks like sound strategic positioning for a company with an 80 per cent stake in the broader Forrestania gold project and its 404,000oz JORC resource.
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