Gold miner St Barbara (ASX:SBM) is moving forward with a ‘comprehensive’ metallurgical testwork program on drill samples from its Simberi Operations in Papua New Guinea.
The $114.5 million market capitalisation company has reported the assay results from the final 4 metallurgical diamond holes of a 14-hole program over the Simberi area, allowing the collection and subsequent dispatch of 2,434kg of sulphide ore to Canada for the testwork program.
St Barbara says the program carries 3 main objectives. Firstly, the company seeks to resolve assumptions regarding the competency of ore from the Sorowar area of the project, which has previously been classified as ‘medium’, while all other ore types were classified as ‘extra soft’.
St Barbara says these classifications have a ‘significant’ impact on the capacity of any grinding circuit design.
Secondly, the testwork is designed to determine whether lower flotation mass recovery can be achieved than indicated in previous testwork. This will allow St Barbara to better scale the flotation circuit without adversely impacting gold recovery.
Thirdly, the work will test the potential of ultra-find grinding and leaching of concentrate to deliver a more ‘capital-efficient’ project design.
With the drilling work now complete, the second and final batch of sample material is now in transit from Simberi to Canada.
St Barbara says the diamond holes were targeted in ‘well-understood’ areas of the current pits within the project area. All up, the company completed 1,856m of drilling as part of this program.
Yesterday’s (28 February 2024) news comes just one day after St Barbara reported the discovery of visible gold at its Cochrane Hill Deeps resource in Nova Scotia, Canada.
Images: St Barbara Mining
