Alt eyes future production

10th August 2018 By: Esmarie Iannucci - Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor: Australasia

PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Mineral explorer Alt Resources on Friday told shareholders that the potential for near-term gold production existed within the tailings dam operations at the Bottle Creek project, in Western Australia.

Preliminary testing on the Bottle Creek tailings dams have estimated an average grade of 0.16 g/t gold and 6.1 g/t silver, based on 66 shallow aircore holes, the ASX-listed company told shareholders.

Alt’s aim with the with the drilling programme was to ascertain whether exploitable gold and silver remained within the tailing dam, with the company saying on Friday that a more comprehensive drill pattern is planned to cover the whole of each tailings area to more effectively delineate a volume that can be incorporated in the overall Bottle Creek gold resource.

“Our objective with this programme was to negate the cost of refurbishing the tailings dams. Given the right economics, in a future mining cycle we would strip the existing mineralised soil from the tailings dams, stockpile the soil for re-processing of the low-grade gold and silver and refurbish the dams at the same time,” said Alt CEO James Anderson.

“It’s a recycling concept to cover costs associated with development of the processing plant moving forward,” he added.

Anderson noted that the company is also progressing towards mine design and pit optimisation for the Bottle Creek operation, with consulting mining engineers engaged for this work.

“We are reinforcing our strategy to bring these assets into production as quickly and efficiently as possible, and we will continue to fast track this project,” he said.