West Perth-based gold producer Troy Resources NL has annouced the commissioning of its new Andorinhas gold mine in Brazil, which is expected to produce 50,000 ounces of gold per annum over five years.
West Perth-based gold producer Troy Resources NL has annouced the commissioning of its new Andorinhas gold mine in Brazil, which is expected to produce 50,000 ounces of gold per annum over five years.
The commencement of production is timely, given gold has exceeded the US$1000 per ounce mark today.
The full Troy Resources announcement appears below:
Troy Resources NL has announce the successful commissioning of its new Andorinhas gold mine in Para State in Brazil.
First gold was poured from the plant on March 13, 2008. The second ball mill, which will bring throughput up to full production levels, has arrived on site and is currently being installed.
It is expected that the second ball mill will be commissioned in April. Initially the Andorinhas plant was fed with low grade ore from the Lagao Seca open pit to enable commissioning of the full process circuit.
All parts of the plant have performed as designed and gold metallurgical recoveries have been at or above forecast levels of 92%.
High grade Lagao Seca ore is now being fed into the plant. Mining at Lagao Seca has exceeded forecast and approximately 130,000 tones of ore at an estimated grade of 3.52 g/t is in stockpiles.
This equates to more than 6 months of plant feed at maximum design throughput rates. Once at full production, the Andorinhas project is expected to produce approximately 50,000 ounces of gold per annum over a life of at least 5 years.
Development of the underground mine to access the high grade Mamao deposit has commenced and is progressing on schedule.
The decline to access the ore has been initially mined by hand held methods to establish the portal and underground services and has advanced 52 metres.
The Atlas Copco Jumbo, which will be used for both development and mechanised cut and fill mining of the ore, is due to arrive on site by 22nd of March 2008.
First ore production from the Mamao underground is currently expected by end of July 2008.
CEO Paul Benson said "This is a significant milestone for Troy. All those involved with bringing Andorinhas into production have done a fantastic job.Troy purchased the property as an insitu Indicated Resource in November 2006 and has now commenced production only 16 months later for an initial capital cost of only US$ 15.5 million," he said.
"This is yet another example of Troy's ability to build projects quickly, efficiently and at low cost. Importantly there have been no serious accidents or incidents during the development of the new mines at Andorinhas or the construction of the processing plant. ".
"We see Andorinhas as the key element of Troy's growth over the short, medium and longer term. So far we have seen very good reconciliation between ore mined and our resource model with grades slightly higher than initially modeled. We continue to aggressively explore the Andorinhas leases and expect to add to the resource estimate mid year at which time we also expect to have the results of the scoping study into the commercial mining of the iron ore that is also found on the Andorinhas leases."