Venus Metals and JV partner, Rox Resources have tabled their first set of metallurgical test work numbers at the Youanmi gold project in West Australia’s Goldfields. The results show an impressive average gold recovery from the oxide material at the Grace prospect of 97 per cent. The test work also returned a gold recovery of 94 per cent in oxide material at the Plant Zone and Main Lode.
High gold recoveries in the shallow oxide zone are encouraging for the JV partners who said they are now confident in the non-refractory nature of the mineralisation from outside the historical mine area at Youanmi.
Five deposits were analysed as part of the maiden metallurgical test program - the Grace deposit, Plant Zone, Youanmi South, Commonwealth and Main Lode.
The Grace prospect returned an average gold recovery of 94 per cent in the transitional zone - between 50 and 80 metres below the surface.
Recoveries in the primary or fresh rock averaged 95 per cent recovery at Grace.
The results will now underpin the company's future development efforts and may even change the way the project is regarded overall as the historical Youanmi gold mine was known for its refractory ore at depth.
A refractory or sulphide ore has ultra-fine gold particles dispersed throughout its gold “occluded” minerals. Sulphides are impermeable and will thus occlude gold, making it hard to recover via standard leaching methods.
The drilling results from Grace have been nothing short of spectacular with recent intercepts of 2m grading 176 grams per tonne from 28m down hole within a total 4m interval grading 88.81g/t gold from 27m.
At the Plant Zone prospect, free gold sitting in quartz veins has been spotted by the company and mineralisation has been identified over a 1.4 kilometre strike length. Excellent results at the Plant Zone have rolled off the drill bit consistently for Venus and Rox last year and feature hits such as 4m at 11.23g/t gold from 92m.
The primary ore zone at the Commonwealth prospect averaged an 88 per cent gold recovery - weathered and transitional zones at Commonwealth are relatively shallow and reach about 50m depth.
Metallurgical gold recoveries at Youanmi South returned an average of 93 per cent from the transitional zone. Drilling is yet to break through to fresh rock, as the transitional zone currently reaches up to 120m depth.
At Main Lode, Venus and Rox said gold mineralisation spans a length of 2.3km and is associated with sulphide minerals, pyrite and arsenopyrite, which results in the ore being partially refractory.
The recovery of gold via cyanide leaching from the primary zone averaged 76 per cent at Main Lode.
Venus and Rox can now get on with further development work and are planning further drilling at the Grace prospect now that they are confident that conventional cyanide extraction methods can treat the Youanmi project ore deposits.
Two drill rigs are on site, with the Grace prospect the first priority and metallurgical test work is ongoing.
Is your ASX listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
Venus Metals
