www.lydianinternational.co.uk
Lydian International is a mineral exploration and development company with expertise and a proven track record in discovering and developing new gold projects in unfamiliar and frontier settings. The Company is currently focussed on developing its Amulsar gold discovery in southern Armenia. The Amulsar project was a new discovery made by Lydian in 2006 and currently hosts a global resource of 3.2M ounces after its resource update in January 2012. This resource update comprises a total of 1.7 million ounces gold in the indicated category and 0.6 million ounces gold in inferred category (using a 0.4g/t cut-off) from the contiguous Tigranes and Artavasdes areas and 0.5 million ounces gold in the indicated category and 0.4 million ounces inferred category from the Erato prospect which is located approximately 900 meters to the north of Tigranes-Artavasdes. The project remains open in all directions and is currently advancing towards Bankable Feasibility with full production due in the first half of 2014.
Lydian test results from Amulsar project continue to show rapid gold recoveries
Lydian International (TSX:LYD) announced that further metallurgical testing at its Amulsar gold discovery in Armenia continues to imply exceptionally rapid recoveries.
Amulsar is a high-sulfidation style gold project which currently hosts a CIM compliant inferred category resource of 1.4 million ounces at 0.9 grams per ton of gold.
Lydian commissioned Wardell Armstrong International to undertake a further program
of laboratory bottle roll and column leach test work on drill hole samples from
the Amulsar project.
Composite samples (samples A and B) originally tested by SGS Minerals Services UK Ltd were re-tested using a wider range of crush sizes and solvent concentrations.
A representative head-grade sample was riffled from each composite and assayed for gold. Sample A assayed 1.26g/t gold and Sample B assayed 1.14g/t gold.
The program of column test work was undertaken using solvent concentrations of 0.075, 0.050 and 0.025 percent. The crush sizes investigated were 38, 25, 19 and 12 millimetres. The columns were irrigated at a rate of 10 litres/square meters/hour and the leach period was 68 days.
The test results concluded that the cost-optimized crush size for Amulsar gold mineralization is probably 19mm and the optimum solvent concentration is 0.05 percent.
Using these parameters composite's A and B recovered 93.5 and 93.1 percent gold respectively. Initial column leaching was exceptionally rapid for both samples with up to 80 percent gold being recovered after seven days of leaching.
President and chief executive Tim Coughlin said: "By virtue of its deep oxidation the Amulsar project has always demonstrated very good gold recoveries. Also important, but often overlooked, is the time it takes to extract the gold and as with previous results, these tests imply exceptionally rapid recoveries for Amulsar.
“Further metallurgical tests are currently being conducted on fit for purpose wide diameter drill core with results expected early in Q2," he added.
Lydian is a diversified mineral exploration and development company with expertise employing first-mover strategies in emerging exploration environments. Lydian is currently focused on Eastern Europe and on developing its flagship Amulsar gold project in Armenia.
Lydian also has a pipeline of promising early-stage gold and base metal exploration projects in the Caucasus region.
