Sacre-Coeur complete hydraulic gold mining conversion at Million Mountain’s Zone 1

Sacre-Coeur Minerals (TSX:SCM) told investors has completed its conversion to hydraulic mining - high pressure water jets – at Zone 1 of the Million Mountain Project in Guyana.  Subsequently, with capacity now at target rates, the company expects gold production to be maximized through fine-tuning of the processing plant over the course of the next two to three months.

According to Sacre-Coeur, the hydraulic extraction methodology has achieved its goals, to improve recovery of alluvial/bedrock gold and reduce its reliance on heavy and costly mining equipment.

“Achievement of this milestone, together with the recently announced positive results of the Company’s step-out drilling program on its Million Mountain Zone 1 resource body sustain our enthusiasm for the Company’s growth potential”, Sacre-Coeur stated.

“We are very pleased that this conversion has been completed for well under the estimated maximum cost of C$200,000 and look forward to the benefits aimed at making the Company potentially completely cash self-sufficient as it continues to pursue its principal goal of developing major hard-rock gold resources in Guyana”.

The company said that initial observations confirm that the revised methods is resulting in greatly improved extraction of the alluvial material at the bedrock interface - which contains much of the coarse component of alluvial gold.

At the project’s alluvial Area 2 the company the hydraulic mining technology has been installed along with other mining and processing improvements. The implementation and testing was successfully completed in May.

Sacre-Coeur noted that its production results will be periodically reported hence forth as meaningful quantities of alluvial material are processed and gold production there from is recorded.

The company also said that the stripping of overburden will still be carried out with ‘heavy equipment’, including excavators and bulldozers. Meanwhile, the

As previously announced, stripping of overburden will continue utilizing heavy equipment, including excavators and bulldozers while extraction of the alluvial zone will be accomplished utilizing high pressure water jets to ‘wash’ the gold-bearing sands and gravels into pumps, for subsequent transportation to the company’s processing plant. 

Last month, Sacre-Coeur reported further encouraging results from its ongoing efforts at Zone 1 of the Million Mountain property.

Zone 1 already hosts a 43-101 compliant measured resource of 12.12 million tonnes grading 1 gram per tonne gold and indicated resource of 2.175 million tonnes grading 0.9 grams per tonne gold, or a combined measured and indicated resource of approximately 0.45 million ounces.

Drilling has continued at Zone 1, where the company reported that drill hole MM17510 intersected 103.6 meters grading 1.26 grams per tonne gold, including a higher grade 15 meters at 4.81 grams per tonne gold.  The drill hole encountered seven significant zones of gold mineralization in total and averaged 0.4 grams per tonne gold from surface to 589 meters.