Sacre-Coeur hires Tetra Tech for Million Mountain Monday March 04 2013 - News Release
Mr. Gregory Sparks reports
SACRE-COEUR MINERALS SELECTS TETRA TECH, RDI, AND MET-SOLVE FOR FEASIBILITY AND ASSOCIATED STUDIES FOR MILLION MOUNTAIN ZONE 1 PROJECT
Sacre-Coeur Minerals Ltd. has selected Tetra Tech to lead its National Instrument 43-101-compliant feasibility study for development of the company's Million Mountain zone 1 resource located in the Mazaruni mining district No. 3 of Guyana. In addition, the Company has engaged Resource Development Inc. ("RDi") and Met-Solve Laboratories Inc. ("Met-Solve"), two highly qualified metallurgical labs, to assist with metallurgical scoping and trade-off studies as well as final flow sheet development and process modelling.
Owing to the very positive results of the Company's detailed internal scoping and economic analysis, the Company has elected to move directly to a formal feasibility study being performed by these pre-eminent consulting groups on the company's behalf. In order to expedite delivery, the entire process of scoping and trade-off studies, feasibility study and report, and final design for construction have been integrated into a seamless process utilizing the same team. Delivery of the NI 43-101 compliant feasibility study is targeted for summer of 2013, followed immediately by a final development decision (pending positive study results as expected), completion of development financing, and commencement of construction. Commissioning of the mine and plant for production is targeted for 3Q 2014.
The Million Mountain Zone 1 deposit hosts approximately 500,000 tr oz Au as currently tested, including NI 43-101 compliant "measured" resources of 12.12 million tonnes grading 1.0g/t Au, and "indicated" resources of 2.18 million tonnes grading 0.9g/t Au. Since completion of the NI 43-101 resource calculation and report by Pincock, Allen & Holt (Runge Pincock Minarco), the Company has completed 40 additional drill holes on the perimeter of the resource body which have encountered gold mineralization, and are expected to be additive to the resource. The resource will be formally updated to NI 43-101 standards to include these additional holes as a part of the feasibility study and the updated resource body will be utilized for detailed mine planning.
Feasibility of exploitation of the deposit will be broken into two phases. The first, which is the subject of the current work, will be limited to that portion of the deposit which is saprolitized (chemically weathered to clay-like consistency). Mining and processing requirements for this regime are considerably different from those of un-weathered rock in that drilling and blasting is not required to excavate saprolite, and crushing and grinding requirements for the heavily weathered material are substantially less intensive. Feasibility analysis of mining and processing the un-weathered portion of the deposit will be a separate undertaking to be commissioned at a later date, once mining of the saprolite portion of the body is well advanced.
The base case scope for the current feasibility analysis includes mining and processing at the rate of nominally 100,000 tonnes per month. Mining will be limited to the saprolite portion of the body and will be prosecuted by conventional open pit methods down to the contact between the weathered and un-weathered portions of the body at a depth of approximately 40 meters below the surface. The process plant is contemplated to be of portable, modular construction to minimize on-site construction, thus providing the benefits of economy and improved quality of shop-built modules and minimizing on-site construction risks. The basic flow sheet currently contemplated will include a nominal crushing and grinding circuit followed by gravity concentration. Gravity tails may be subjected to CN leaching to recover remaining gold not recoverable by gravity means if demonstrated to be cost beneficial. Preliminary work suggests that because of the relatively coarse gold particle size distribution, it may be more cost effective to enhance the gravity circuit with an intensive multistage process likely to include some regrinding, and eliminate the leaching circuit entirely.
The Company is very pleased to have assembled such an outstanding team with years of on-point experience, including work on Guyana projects, and specifically including beneficiation of saprolitic auriferous ores. We look forward to integrating this world-class experience with the considerable local operating knowledge of the Company's technical staff to produce an optimal project and accurate feasibility analysis thereof.
We seek Safe Harbor.
© 2013 Canjex Publishing Ltd.