Orinoco continues recovering ‘spectacular’ gold grades in hammer mill trial
On-site gravity processing plant at Cascavel.
Orinoco Gold (ASX: OGX) has recovered more “spectacular” gold grades from its ongoing hammer mill pilot program at its wholly-owned Cascavel project in Latin America.
In this latest batch, six samples returned an average of 36.68 grams per tonne gold with one sample giving up 69.02g/t of the precious metal.
To-date, all samples have averaged 45.19g/t gold with the first 15 reported samples ranging between 26g/t and 149g/t.
These latest results are from the third batch of hammer mill tests which have produced “consistently high grades”.
Orinoco has taken a ‘back to basics’ approach to processing ore from its Cascavel project in Brazil after initial mining fail to return low cost ounces due to “excessive dilution during mining” and “lower recoveries” from the gravity plant.
As part of its back to basics approach, Orinoco is trialling a more traditional pilot hammer mill processing route for its ore, which has so far returned “dramatically improved” grades.
“This ‘back to basics’ approach is proving an important step in showing Cascavel’s true potential as one of the high grading gold mines in Latin America,” Orinoco chief operating officer Richard Crew said.
“The positive results currently being attained are attributed to the hard work and forward thinking of our new management, highly experienced geological and planning teams, miners and support of our loyal shareholders,” he said.
Mr Crew added mining has resumed at the orebody’s northern zone, which the company originally believed to be low grade, but is now anticipating similar “turnaround” results.
The Cuca shaft in the zone has also been dewatered and remedial activities underway, with a decision on how best to restart the mine anticipated by the end of the month and mining expected to resume by April.
Orinoco has also purchased a 400kg per hour hammer mill with onsite installation progressing. The company plans to reprocess tailings in bulk samples to add to its current program.
However, the company has cautioned there is a possibility the new hammer mill may not have the same recoveries as the trial, but the results so far are positive.
Orinoco’s share price surged more than 21% in early morning trade to A$0.062.