VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Junior miner Rye Patch Gold has reported above-plan output for the June quarter, as it continues to ramp up production from its new leach pad at the refurbished Florida Canyon mine, in north-western Nevada.

Since its completion in April, the new pad has completed its first full cycle of leaching of 45 days. Secondary leaching and the new placement of ore is continuing on the Phase 1A portion of the pad. 

Since April, Rye Patch has poured 12 678 oz of gold and silver doré, comprising 7 075 oz of gold and 5 603 oz of silver. The better-than-expected gold production is a result of more tons being placed on the leach pad between January and March, the company advised.

"We continue to successfully ramp up mine operations, and the team is pleased with progress through the end of the second quarter. Gold production in the second quarter exceeded the ramp-up plan by more than 1 500 oz of gold and the mine is on track for third quarter 2017 commercial production,” president and CEO William Howald said in a statement on Monday.

A third party has completed an audit of the leach pad and compared its operational performance to the expected leach recovery model, concluding that the new leach pad is performing in line with the leach curve model, with recovered gold ounces within 1% of the projected gold output.

Meanwhile, June production was above plan but below expectations because of the acid wash circuit being offline for most of June, to replace a cracked wash vessel. The new vessel has arrived and is being installed. Work on the regeneration kiln was also completed in June. 

The result of these two items being offline was a decrease in efficiency of the carbon plant to attract the gold, thus decreasing gold production. Both circuits will be back online in July.

Mining achieved 85% of its budgeted ore tons in the second quarter, with the bulk of the ore coming from the Jasperoid pit. Starting in July, the mine will have two sources of ore – the Central and Jasperoid pits.