PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Junior base and precious metals producer Red River Resources on Friday announced plans to restart gold production at its Hillgrove gold project, in New South Wales, during 2020.
The company told shareholders that metallurgical testwork at the project had demonstrated the viability of treating the Bakers Creek waste dump material through the existing Hillgrove mill, with total gold recovery to saleable gold produced on-site estimated at between 75% to 80%.
“These results from Hillgrove show we can restart gold production from existing on-site material. Having only acquired Hillgrove in August 2019, we are pleased that results to date validated our strategy to expand our operations and we are progressing our plans to restart Hillgrove production before the end of 2020,” said Red River MD Mel Palancian.
Work has already started on a conceptual flowsheet, he added.
Palancian noted that the current gravity circuit at the mill would require upgrading to process the Bakers Creek material, with the company also planning to add a cyanide destruction circuit to the mill.
Red River is also investigating the potential of an intensive cyanide leach circuit to maximise the gold recovery from the gravity gold concentrate.