Australian mining company Troy Resources Limited has completed commissioning of its processing plant at its Karouni gold project in Region Seven and expects its first gold pour next month.
“Conclusion of commissioning activities represents a significant milestone in the fast-track development of Karouni and I congratulate all the employees and contractors who have worked together safely and tirelessly to achieve this outcome – within very challenging physical conditions. If the ramp up in production continues as expected, the first gold pour is now expected to occur in the first half of November,” Managing Director Martin Purvis, said in a statement yesterday.
“This is another exciting step forward for Troy’s new flagship operation following on from the start of exploration activities at Karouni in late September,” he added.
Troy has proposed a medium-scale gold mine designed to produce up to 110,000 ounces of gold per annum based on an average overall recovery of 92% at the Black Water Creek, Kaburi Area, in Region Seven.
The mine will be focused on the recovery of ore for processing from Smarts and Hicks gold deposits. The project components in-clude an open cut mine, processing plant, tailings storage facility, mine site accommodation and additional infrastructure re-quired to recover and to process ore for the recovery of gold.
Yesterday, the company announced that commissioning of the processing plant at the Karouni gold project was complete. Construction activities commenced in February this year.
“Over the past 6 weeks, all parts of the plant have been dry and wet commissioned. The mill was the last major component to be put through this process, undergoing an extended performance test under full load conditions.
Operating at steady state, all pressure and temperature readings were recorded within specified limits.
The mill is now being fed with a limited amount of ore to enable pressure and flow rate adjustment to all systems.
The last part of the elution circuit, the smelting system, is programmed and ready to be run in the next day or so. Once this happens, the entire elution circuit will be signed off by the chief design engineer. All operating personnel, including supervisors and technical staff, are in place,” the company said in a statement.
“Once the final adjustments have been made to the mill and processing circuits, ore feed will be steadily increased towards the plant’s nominal design capacity of approximately 80,000 tonnes per month. This level of throughput is expected to be achieved in early 2016,” it added.
The company said that mining operations have progressed without incident whilst the plant has been put through the commissioning programme. As a result, it has a stockpile of approximately 137,000 tonnes of ore. The mining team has already reached the harder rock in the transition zone from one of the Hicks pits, the company said.
The Australian company has said that by the end of its first three years, Guyana’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) would have seen an 8.7% increase as a result of its activities.
Only last month, Canadian firm Guyana Goldfields Inc celebrated its first gold pour and its production has already impacted gold declaration which was 317,036 ounces up to October 21, slightly less than the 320, 133 ounces up to October last year. Up to mid-year, there was a significant gap in declarations compared to the same period last year. Due to the two new mines, Guyana is expected to produce more gold than last year.
