Chrysos Corporation says it has reached an agreement with Ravenswood Gold for the installation of a custom-built Chrysos PhotonAssay™ facility on site at its namesake gold mine in Queensland, Australia.
Originally developed at Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, Chrysos PhotonAssay is billed as delivering faster, safer and more accurate gold analysis, and is an environmentally-friendly replacement for fire assay on-site and in the laboratory.
Gold mining has been active in the Ravenswood region since 1868. In 2020, Ravenswood Gold purchased the site and committed to a major expansion of the existing mining operation. The growth plan includes establishing large-scale modern bulk open-pit mining operations in the former Buck Reef West and Sarsfield/Nolans open pits, increasing the size of the processing plant and constructing a new tailings storage facility. This ongoing development is expected to increase gold production to over 200,000 oz/y, extend the life of the mine by 14 years and see the Ravenswood mine become the largest gold operation in Queensland by 2022, according to the company.
Chrysos Corporation Chief Executive, Dirk Treasure, said: “Chrysos is proud to be partnering with Ravenswood Gold on this ground-breaking PhotonAssay installation at the Ravenswood mine site. The adoption of PhotonAssay on site at the mine reflects Ravenswood’s proactive approach to achieving excellence through technology and we look forward to working with them as they achieve their operational and sustainability goals.”
Ravenswood Gold Chief Executive, Brett Fletcher, added: “The team at Ravenswood is excited to be partnering with Chrysos on the establishment of this high technology facility right in the heart of the mine site. For us, the significant safety and sustainability benefits combined with low cost, high efficiency and lightning turnaround times delivers all the outcomes we are driving for. Being able to assay 500 to 1,000 samples per day of our grade control drilling, metallurgical sampling and exploration drilling will support us in creating a mining and mineral processing hub we believe will be operating for decades.”
Hitting samples with high-energy X-rays, Chrysos PhotonAssay causes excitation of atomic nuclei allowing rapid and enhanced analysis of gold, silver and complementary elements in as little as two minutes, Chrysos says. Importantly, the non-destructive process allows large samples of up to 500 g to be measured and provides a “true” bulk reading independent of the chemical or physical form of the sample.
Market enthusiasm for PhotonAssay’s operational and environmental benefits has endowed Chrysos with a strong sales pipeline and multiple new contract signings heading out to 2023, representing significant and sustained growth on current deployment numbers, the company said. Just some of the recent PhotonAssay deployments include a unit at Barrick’s Bulyanhulu mine in Tanzania, an installation at the Morila gold mine in Mali and one at Kirkland Lake Gold’s Fosterville mine in Australia.
Chrysos says it anticipates further global demand for PhotonAssay over the coming years in a worldwide market with room for approximately 350 units.