Classic Minerals is barrelling down the road to production at Kat Gap near Southern Cross in Western Australia, with its latest test-work showing exceptional recoveries of gold from simple processing techniques. Test work shows that gravity processing and conventional cyanide leaching recovers up to 96 per cent of the contained gold in the Kat Gap ores, paving the way to low-cost production.
Classic’s Forrestania gold project is located approximately 370km east of Perth in Western Australia. The project overlies the famed Southern Cross greenstone belt with Classic currently earning 80 per cent in the Forrestania tenure held by ASX-listed Hannan’s Ltd whilst it already owns 100 per cent of the Kat Gap discovery in the south of the belt. Classic’s Forrestania project area already boasts resources totalling 8.24 Million tonnes at 1.52 g/t gold in three separate deposit areas.
Classic made the high-grade Kat Gap gold discovery back in 2018 and has progressed the deposit at an extraordinary rate with the company now in the final stages of its test-work program as it reaches towards potential production in the latter half of this year.
Classic Minerals Chief Executive Officer, Dean Goodwin said:
“We are fortunate to have, after conducting detailed research, found that the metallurgical results confirm that the ore, when processed using traditional gravity and leach processes provide an outstanding gold recovery. “
“The recent results gives (us) great hope that there is the possibility of gold deposits to augment and further enhance the gold resources already determined at Kat Gap.”
“We will be working on extending the resource with more infill drilling and then expanding the resource with extensional drilling along strike as well as in the granite.”
The Kat Gap gold mineralisation outcrops at surface and when combined with low mining and processing costs presents the company with a potential cheap entry into the coveted realm of gold producers.
In recent months, the company’s development program has included metallurgical testing, equipment evaluations and an assessment of potential toll treating options designed to bring Kat Gap into production in the shortest possible timeframe.
The recent metallurgical test work completed in Perth by global processing experts, Nagrom, indicates that much of the gold in the Kat Gap deposit is coarse grained and free milling. The company says up to 75 per cent of the gold in the ores can be recovered via a simple processing circuit comprising of crushing, grinding and gravity separation. This represents a cheap and simple processing methodology.
However, Classic has discovered that if the resultant ore slurry is then subjected to a conventional cyanide leach, commonly utilised in gold plants across WA, gold recoveries jump to an astonishing 96 per cent. Most gold mining operations are happy to recover around 90 per cent of the gold in their ore. Classic looks to be chasing something quite exceptional at Kat Gap, and with gold recently blasting through A$2,000 an ounce, margins should not be a problem.
Classic recently upped the ante at Kat Gap by securing a portable “Gekko” gravity gold processing plant which it is fast tracking to site which might see it start to print money sometime soon.
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By Matt Birney
