JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The Soledad Mountain gold and silver project near Mojave, in California, is proceeding on schedule, with processing facilities set to be commissioned in late 2015, TSX-listed Golden Queen Mining reported on Tuesday.

The Vancouver-based company said its 50%-owned subsidiary, Golden Queen Mining Company (GQ California), had negotiated $43-million of new construction work with contractors for four turnkey projects, including the crushing-screening plant, the stacking and conveying system, the Merill-Crowe plant and the Phase 1/Stage 1 heap leach pad.

Work on these turnkey projects was set to start in early January, which would pave the way for the commissioning of the process facilities in the fourth quarter of 2015.

Golden Queen further reported progress on the water and electricity supply for the site. GC California has completed the detailed engineering for water supply infrastructure and had obtained cost estimates. Its electrical engineers were now working on the detailed design for the project’s power distribution and the interconnection with regional utility, Southern California Edison.

“Indications are that power will be available towards the end of the second quarter of 2015,” Golden Queen stated.

Regarding mining equipment, the company said it would use Komatsu equipment for the mining fleet. Komatsu Financial would provide GQ California with a $17-million line of credit to finance the equipment.

The equipment would be bought through a local Komatsu distributor, Road Machinery, which would also provide support services. The distributor was developing a facility in Mojave for maintenance support for the project.

The first piece of earthmoving equipment, a water truck with a capacity of 8 000 gallons, was recently delivered to site.

So far, GQ California has spent about $21-million on the Soledad Mountain development and construction.

Meanwhile, Golden Queen said the project’s total estimated resources and reserves might be downgraded, owing to a review of the geological resource model and related technical information.

The review by Mine Development Associates (MDA) of Reno, Nevada, indicated that vein widths were narrower than previously modelled, but that vein continuity was well supported and had good predictability along strike and down-dip.

Golden Queen said that further work and analysis was ongoing to assess the impact of the expected lower resource and reserve estimates on the project’s economics.

MDA would prepare an updated resource report pursuant to National Instrument 43-101, while Kappes, Cassiday & Associates would update the reserve estimates, based on current technical information, cost estimates and prices for gold and silver. The updated resource and reserve estimates were expected to be available in early January.