Spanish Mountain Gold (TSXV: SPA) announced that it received encouraging results from an alternatives study for its namesake gold project located in central British Columbia, Canada.
Possibilities highlighted by the study:
– Lower initial capital cost– Higher process plant feed grades
– Refined pit shell that could isolate a higher grade pit-constrained resource
– Improved economic metrics for the Project
In a press release, the Vancouver-based miner said the results provided by consulting firm Moose Mountain Technical Services suggest that there is a reasonable basis to assess the technical and economic viability of a mining operation with a milling throughput of 10,000 tonnes per day vs. 20,000 tonnes per day presented in the 2017 Preliminary Economic Assessment.
“Under the project scenario being investigated, a mine plan is expected to focus on the initial first decade of operation resulting in a project with higher feed grades and higher average resource grade,” Spanish Mountain’s media brief reads. “Furthermore, in spite of reducing the proposed milling rate by 50% compared to the 2017 PEA, the project’s production profile with the proposed mining scenario potentially could remain robust with a target average gold production of above 100,000 ounces of gold per year.”
According to the company, the large mineral resource at Spanish Mountain allows for development flexibility and scalable capital requirements.
The project, located 70 kilometres northeast of Williams Lake, is a two-zone property in which the pit-delineated high-grade core or First Zone is expected to sustain a stand-alone operation exceeding 24 years.