JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – West Africa-focused diamond and gold exploration company Golden Saint Resources has recovered 1.69 ct of rough diamonds, comprising three diamonds, since commissioning the washing plant at is Baja licence, in Sierra Leone, on November 13.
The Aim-listed company on Wednesday said it had also identified the next prospective sites from which gravel would be extracted and washed, based on information obtained from a field reconnaissance.
Meanwhile, the company experienced a setback at its Tongo licence, also in Sierra Leone, following a breakage of the shaft connected to the centrifugal pump at its Tongo site 1 alluvial pit.
This breakage during the dewatering operation resulted in equipment downtime, with additional time incurred in sourcing and replacing the damaged shaft.
With the repairs carried out satisfactorily, the dewatering operation was completed on November 14 and the excavator was mobilised to the site to start gravel extraction operations, set to take two weeks, at Tongo site 1.
Alluvial specialist Rock Forage, which has been contracted as a consultant and is leading the exploration, will again visit the two sites along with Golden Saint management, in December.
“The visit is timely as it will allow our technical consultants to closely examine the production data, thus giving a better assessment of the potential diamond and gold recoveries in both the Baja and Tongo licence areas,” the company said in a statement.
With the interpretation of these results, it is expected that the exploration strategy going forward will also be fine-tuned accordingly, with the objective of confirming gold and diamond mineralisation.