Meteoric Resources (ASX:MEI) has reported early results from metallurgical test work at its Palm Springs Project in Western Australia, with gold recoveries in excess of 96%.
The results come from recently-drilled core from the sulphide zone within the project’s standout Butchers Creek Deposit, with the ore now considered suitable for low-cost CIL cyanide leach plant processing.
The test work was carried out at ALS laboratories in Perth, and was designed to gauge the complexity of work required for Butchers Creek using standard sulphide ore screening techniques. The result saw gold dissolution of 96.4% after 24 hours of leach time.
“Such a high recovery number will feed directly into the current scoping study and will have a substantial impact on mine design and capital and operating cost estimates”
Speaking on the test work outcome, Meteoric Resources Managing Director Dr. Andrew Tunks said “These initial metallurgical test results of Composite #1 from Butchers Creek have produced an outstanding result in that a low cost simple “whole of ore” flowsheet using CIL only is indicated as being suitable for our project. Excellent cyanide leach recoveries in excess of 96%, with the potential to improve on this result, were achieved without the added complication, capital and operating cost imposed by either gravity recovery or flotation.
The most important outcome from this test work is the high leach recovery achieved on straight “whole of ore” leaching, which indicates the gold is well liberated and not locked up or influenced by the presence of moderate amounts of sulphides.
Such a high recovery number will feed directly into the current scoping study and will have a substantial impact on mine design and capital and operating cost estimates, The outcomes from the scoping study will drive the Company’s Halls Creek strategy in 2022 and will be released in the first quarter 2022.”
The company believes that a simplified flowsheet from these results may lead to potential for a low-cost treatment facility, and ore which is suitable for toll treatment.
These results will be incorporated into a scoping study that is currently underway with independent consultants Auralia Mining Consulting, due in Q1 2022.
The Palm Springs Gold Project, located in Western Australia’s Halls Creek Orogen, was acquired by Meteoric in March 2020 and includes the Butchers Creek Mine, which has accounted for over 52,000 ounces of historical gold production.
The project encompasses 20km of prospective strike over 12,500ha, with exploration activity over the past 20 months including a 26-hole drill program that extended known gold mineralisation over 360m along strike from the Butchers Creek open pit.
A maiden Global Mineral Resource Estimate was declared in June 2021, weighing in at 5.6Mt @ 2.0 g/t Au for 357,000oz of contained gold. Importantly 40% of this sits within the the indicated-resource category.
Images: Meteoric Resources NL
