Hummingbird Resources notes that completion of plant construction and ore commissioning in 2017, was achieved within both the planned 18-month schedule and the $88.5 million budgeted capital cost. Since first gold was poured on December 19, the performance of the plant has steadily improved month by month. In the first 14 days of March, the plant operated at an average of 95% of design throughput and has consistently achieved a gold recovery rate of approximately 96%, which is in excess of design specification.
Total gold recovered to March 14 was 16,804 oz, of which 11,958 oz has been poured and 4,846 oz are currently within circuit inventory.
During the initial ore commissioning phase, the plant was processing ore from the lower-grade stockpiles in order to ensure plant performance and gold recovery were satisfactory before increasing the head grade. Over the past two months, the amount of high grade ore fed into the mill blend has been steadily increased and the plant is now running close to name-plate capacity with recoveries remaining consistently above design; higher-grade ore continues to be increasingly introduced to the plant.
| Month 1
Commencing 9 December 2017 |
Month 2
Commencing 8 January 2018 |
Month 3
Commencing 8 February 2018 |
|
| Tonnes Milled (dry) | 55,699 | 72,346 | 86,592 |
| Mill Feed Grade (g/t) | 2.02 | 2.34 | 3.35 |
| Throughput (dry tonnes/hour) | 102 | 117 | 139 |
| Plant Availability * (%) | 78 | 83 | 87 |
| Gold Recovery ** (%) | 95.9 | 95.8 | 96.5 |
*Plant availability is due to be 91% when in steady state operations
**Recovery calculations based on gold lost to tailings
Dan Betts, CEO of Hummingbird, commented: “We are delighted that the plant has performed so well and that the work carried out by our highly experienced team and contractors has so far been rewarded in ramp-up operations with 96% recoveries, over 3g/t head grade and a steady increase in plant throughput towards design. This is an impressive achievement in such a short space of time.”
