Panthera Resources PLC (AIM:PAT) said bottle roll metallurgical tests on samples of crushed diamond drill core at Kalaka in Mali showed recoveries between 67% and 88%, a positive result for the coarse size tested (minus 10mm).
All samples tested show relatively fast cyanide leaching with most gold extracted within 12 hours of leaching.
The initial tests show an ore amenable to simple cyanide leaching and build on previous encouraging Leachwell analysis which also returned positive cyanide extractable gold recovery results.
Mark Bolton, Panthera’s managing director said: "The positive results from this metallurgical testing together with the previously reported favourable Leachwell test results further underpin our growing confidence in the potential at Kalaka which is a significant mineralised gold system.
"This testing represents another important step in our multi-step approach towards assessing the potential for Kalaka mineralisation to be developed by heap leach processing.
“ If this and future work confirm this approach to be viable, the body of work will demonstrably lift confidence in the Kalaka mineralisation to be able to be economically developed."