TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Philippines-focused miner TVI Pacific on Wednesday announced that its Philippine operating affiliate, TVIRD had established a pilot plant at its Canatuan mine to carry out metallurgical testwork on samples of the different types of mineralisation at the nearby Balabag gold/silver project, which resulted in “encouraging” metallurgical recoveries.

The company said initial results from the first 30 t of sample material, grading 4.8 g/t gold and 212 g/t silver, indicated average overall recoveries of 93% for gold and 90% for silver after 36 hours leach time.

The results so far also validated the Balabag test material's amenability to leaching, as determined from previous laboratory-scale tests, and also demonstrated the effectiveness of carbon-in-leach (CIL) over both carbon-in-pulp (CIP) and Merrill-Crowe recovery processes in processing the test material.

TVI said the amenability of CIL over CIP processing could translate into lower capital expenditures, owing to shorter leach times and the elimination of the unit operations associated with the Merrill-Crowe section of the planned plant.

The pilot testwork was expected to continue to produce loaded carbon for design purposes, while evaluating variables of potential ore grades and further optimising the process efficiencies.

"These initial metallurgical testwork results are very encouraging. Confirmation of metal recoveries in this larger-scale pilot plant will help establish the recoveries of gold and silver that can be achieved in a commercial process," chairperson and president Cliff James said.

The Balabag project is located about 75 km north-east of TVI's Canatuan copper/zinc mine, on the island of Mindanao.

The results from this testwork would be incorporated into the detailed planning for the construction of the plant, which was expected to start as soon as the Environmental Management Bureau had granted an environmental clearance certificate, and the declaration of mining project feasibility was approved by the Philippine Mines and Geosciences Bureau of the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources.