Condor Gold PLC (LON:CNR) has published a low-capex, high-grade open pit mining scenario based on updated mining dilution studies for the La India Gold Project, located in Nicaragua (Figure 1).
Figure 1: A Map of the Deposits and Veins at the La India Gold Project
Source: Proactive
These dilution studies have demonstrated that Condor Gold could use a selective mining approach to focus on mining lower-volumes of high-grade mineralisation, reducing the size of the required plant and as a result reducing the amount of capex required to build the plant. Alternatively, the focus on high-grade mineralisation could support a toll treatment operation with a nearby plant owned by another operator.
Under this new scenario, there would be a series of small open pits on the La India Deposit (Figure 2) and a satellite open pit on both the Mestiza and America Deposits. As a result, Condor would be able to extract around 245,000 oz of gold at a high-grade of 4.65 g/t Au.
Figure 2: The Geology of the La India Deposit
Source: Proactive
This high-grade mineralisation could sustain 1,000 tonne per day operation, which could be either a small plant constructed by Condor or a toll milling operation with a nearby plant.
Under this scenario the initial mine life would be five years producing an average of 49,000oz Au per annum. Importantly, the remaining mineralisation at the end of the initial mine life could be extracted through a larger open pit and or underground operation further extending the operations life.
We recently visited the La India Gold Project and a report and a site visit video and recent research note on the company can be viewed from here.