Aston Minerals (ASX:ASO) will imminently start metallurgical testwork on gold samples taken from its Edleston Gold Project in Canada which will go through to December 2023.
The $44.64 million market capitalisation company reports gold bearing core samples taken from previous drilling conducted at Edleston, alongside the current 1.5 million ounces of gold resource, have been selected to be used in the testwork program.
The testwork will be conducted at SGS Lakefield in Ontario, alongside technical support provided by Greg Lane at Ausenco.
Commenting on the testwork, Aston Minerals Managing Director Russell Bradford says this test program will help to confirm the gravity gold recovery rate, as previously reported in March this year, alongside the leachability of the gold and how the gold responds to standard bottle roll leach tests.
“This work will inform the company on the potential and basic operating conditions such as power input, reagent consumption, and leach time and recovery.
All these points can be evaluated on these samples as a first pass using bottle roll tests at various grinds, reagent additions and time.”
Aston also notes the results from its final hole of the 5-hole step out program has been received.
Results from the step out program have provided ‘valuable’ geological information, which will be included in the modelling of the area.
The company is continuing to review the results to uncover and refine targets in the prospective area for future programs.
Aston Minerals is a development phase mining company, focused on its gold and nickel project in North America.
As of 30 June 2023, the company had $1.624 million cash and cash equivalents at hand, according to its latest quarterly report. Post quarter the company completed a $11 million capital raise.
Write to Aaliyah Rogan at Mining.com.au
Images: Aston Minerals
