Classic Minerals’ Kat Gap processing plant in Western Australia’s Wheatbelt region has secured a key endorsement for its efficient approach to gravity gold recovery after an independent evaluation of the company’s circuit design.
Management says the results of independent bench and pilot-scale tests indicate its current configuration is well suited to maximise the recovery of gravity-recoverable gold. The review was undertaken by Independent Metallurgical Operations (IMO), with a view to Classic’s objective of expediting gold production, while minimising costs.
The performance of the company’s pilot plant was found to be consistent with the results of earlier bench-scale metallurgical tests that reported 5 per cent mass recovery and gravity gold recoveries of between 65 per cent and 75 per cent.
Classic Minerals chief executive officer Dean Goodwin said: "The Board’s decision to proceed with the Gekko and gravity circuit has today been vindicated by IMO’s assessment. I can feel the plant coming to life very shortly."
Earlier this week, Classic secured vital water supply security after the State Government’s Department of Water and Environmental Regulation (DWER) granted it a licence to drill a second water bore. A report to certify the project’s tailings storage facility (TSF) is also moving through the bureaucratic pipeline, as the company gets all its ducks in a row to become the State’s next gold producer.
Classic’s plant is gravity-based and the company expects it to achieve 73 per cent recovery of gold from ore in the early days of the project. Management says more than 95 per cent of the liberated gold will be freed through a simple process at a crush size of less than 2mm, handling 100 tonnes of ore per hour at maximum capacity.
Earlier this year, the company posted reverse-circulation (RC) assay results from Kat Gap showing a 10m section at 9.26 grams per tonne gold from 57m, which also included a 3m section at an eye-catching 28.3g/t.
Kat Gap boasts 975,722 tonnes of ore at 2.96g/t gold for a total of 92,800 ounces across the project’s lifespan. It sits just 120km south of historic WA gold mining stopover Southern Cross and 50km south of Classic’s 80 per cent-owned Forrestania gold project, which has a resource estimate of 311,050 ounces of gold at grades of up to 1.4g/t.
Classic holds 578 square kilometres of tenements covering known and prospective gold and base metal targets in the region. However, soon it appears all the attention will be on production rather than exploration, which would be an achievement worth celebrating.
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By Steve Kaless
