EganStreet Resources announces that it has identified an opportunity to optimise and significantly enhance the financial outcomes of its 100%-owned Rothsay Gold Project, located 300 km north-east of Perth in Western Australia, through the application of state-of-the-art ore sorting technology. The Company has received highly favourable initial results from ore sorting testwork completed on a low-grade stockpile from the historical underground mine at Rothsay, with the key outcome that the use of a Steinert Multi-Sensor Ore Sorter provides an opportunity to increase underground mine production (being fed to a similar-sized process plant), reduce the impact of dilution from the main ore-hosting structure at Rothsay, reduce life-of-mine processing costs and substantially enhance project economics.
“Ore sorting technology is increasingly being adopted across the gold mining industry in Western Australia, with highly encouraging results. Representative samples collected from the low-grade stockpile located adjacent to the portal of the historical Rothsay Gold Mine returned an average stockpile grade of 2.5g/t Au. This compares favourably with previous sampling of this stockpile in 2013, which returned results ranging from 2.7 – 4.1g/t Au. More importantly, the results demonstrated that the Steinert Multi-Sensor Ore Sorter was able to successfully reject the barren ultramafic material located in the hanging wall of Woodley’s Shear.” The PFS production target of 936,000 t grading 7.0g/t Au consisted of 43% planned mine dilution (or 400,000 t of the total 936,000 t production target). The ultramafic component of this planned mine dilution represents 59% of the total dilution (or 236,000 t of the total 936,000 t production target).
“The ability to substantially reduce, or potentially virtually eliminate, this hanging wall dilution may allow an increase in mine production, which will have a corresponding positive impact on underground mine productivity, operating costs and economics. Further test work will be conducted in the 1st Quarter of 2018 to confirm these encouraging initial results. The potential of the multi-sensor ore sorter is that underground mine production rates can be increased by 34% without any increase in process plant size.”
EganStreet Managing Director Marc Ducler said the application of ore-sorting technology represented a potential game-changer for the Rothsay Gold Project. “These results, albeit early stage, have shown the ease with which the mine production grade can be selectively upgraded prior to processing. This provides us with significantly greater flexibility in how we develop the mine as well as the ability to optimise our mining and production rates. Given that Rothsay is relatively narrow but high-grade mine, the ability to significantly reduce the substantial amount of planned mine dilution already built into our mine design and financial model through the use of a Steinert Multi-Sensor Ore Sorter is an exciting and very positive development. We are confident that follow-up testing to be undertaken this quarter will confirm a pathway to significantly enhance and optimise our development plan, adding considerable value to the project and representing an important new input to the Definitive Feasibility Study to be finalised next quarter.”
He added: “Technological advances such as this are increasingly being adopted across the gold mining industry in Western Australia and are a great example of how innovation can contribute to improved productivity and enhanced financial outcomes for new mine developments such as Rothsay.
With exploration drilling resuming on site this week, further assay results expected in the near future from some of the holes completed prior to Christmas and Feasibility activities in full swing, shareholders can look forward to strong and consistent news-flow over the coming weeks. We are confident that 2018 will be a breakthrough year for EganStreet, with the Company set to make the transition from explorer to developer in the second half of the year and become a new high-grade Australian gold miner in 2019.”
