PanTerra Gold (ASX:PGI) has connected an additional Albion reactor to the existing oxidation circuit at its Las Lagunas gold-silver project in the Dominican Republic to increase slurry retention time within the circuit.
This has led to oxidation improving and residual sulphide levels exiting the Albion circuit and entering the CIL circuit, progressively dropping to the 3% target.
As expected, CIL gold recoveries have started to improve and to date have reached 68%.
With flotation recovery currently in excess of 80%, overall recoveries are approximately 55% which is in line with that anticipated by the end of the September 2014 quarter.
Another 10 to 14 days will be required to establish recurring recoveries.
During this period, the plant feed is being deliberately restricted to 80% of design capacity to establish a performance baseline, after which feed rates will be progressively increased.
Las Lagunas
The Las Lagunas project has remaining JORC Resources of 3.8 million tonnes at 3.8 million tonnes at 3.78 grams per tonne gold and 38.6g/t silver.
This offers an operating life of approximately 5 years.
Its use of the Albion oxidation process to extract precious metals from refractory ores offers potentially exponential rewards with cash costs expected to hit about US$529 ounces per gold equivalent in the fourth quarter of 2014.
Revenue and operating profit are expected to be US$19.5 million and US$11.5 million respectively.
PanTerra also has about 95,000 ounces of gold hedged at US$1,283 per ounce.
Analysis
The ramp up in gold recoveries is good news for PanTerra Gold and certainly share price accretive.
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