TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – US exploration firm Mexus Gold US has received all environmental and mining permits required to start work on the area that will become Mexus’s openpit heap leach mine on the Julio/Santa Elena property, located 54 km north-west of Caborca, Mexico.
The company advised on Monday that it would clear an area of 300 m by 100 m for the pad. Mexus intended to exploit the shear zone by means of an openpit mine, where the Julio high-grade quartz vein faulted to the west, as identified by director of operations Cesar Lemas.
The shear zone and the Julio quartz vein would be mined simultaneously, with strict grade control. The shear zone ore had graded 1 g/t to 5 g/t, with the Julio assays running much higher and including visible gold, the company reported.
Mexus believed that mining the Julio quartz vein from the surface along with the shear zone made the most sense. The shear zone material would be crushed to a 0.75-inch minus, then placed on the leach pad. The Julio high-grade ore would go straight to Mexus’s crusher ball mill gravity recovery plant. The tailings from the gravity recovery plant would also be placed on the heap.
Nevada-based Mexus advised that it was working with a blasting contractor who had already been on site and evaluated the area. Track drilling would start soon to complete 200 to 250 drill holes ranging from 3 m to 6 m deep. Each of these holes would be sampled to control the grades being processed.
The funding necessary for the materials, dirt work, blasting and labour was coming from the sale of the nonessential placer plant.
The revenue from this initial test pad was expected to provide the company with the required funds to continue furthering its mine plan. “We will be in a fantastic position after the completion of our first run. We’ll have cash in the bank to expand the heap leach and will have shown the value and potential of this property,” advised CEO Paul Thompson.
The company’s flagship 1 335.4 ha Julio/Santa Elena property was situated in an area that was currently being mined by some of the largest mining companies in the world.