Mineral & Financial Investments Ltd (AIM:MAFL) has confirmed that metallurgical test results at the Lagoa Salgada base metals project in Portugal support the use of a conventional polymetallic process flowsheet.
This indicates that the project is likely to be able to produce three saleable concentrates and that recovery of copper, lead, zinc, gold, and silver will be possible.
A full pilot metallurgical test is planned for the first quarter of next year.
The Lagoa Salgada project is held inside Mineral and Financial’s investee project Redcorp.
The programme is funded and guided by Ascendant Resources, which owns 25% of Redcorp, as part of Ascendant's ongoing earn-in commitments.
Due to limited availability of fresh core, the testing material utilized was approximately two years old and highly oxidized which had a negative impact limiting results. Consultants Grinding Solutions Ltd is confident that with further work on fresh core, recovery expectations will be in line with or better than the average seen at other existing mines on the Iberian Pyrite Belt.
"We are very pleased that the test work completed by Grinding Solutions for Redcorp and Ascendant continued to show improved results as compared to previous results, despite having less than ideal material,” said Mineral and Financial’s chief executive Jacques Vaillancourt.
“We are also pleased that Grinding Solutions are confident in achieving at least benchmark recoveries for the Iberian Pyrite Belt at Lagoa Salgada. The testing of oxidized samples has been very helpful to fully understand the behaviour of ore characteristics at Lagoa Salgada on an industrial scale and the results achieved in the Phase 2 test work programme continues to provide the confidence necessary to initiate a full feasibility metallurgical test programme in Q1 2022" .