Message from CEO VANCOUVER, May 1, 2017 /CNW/ - Wellgreen Platinum Ltd. is pleased to provide a message from its President and Chief Executive Officer, Ms. Diane R. Garrett:
"We realize the recent decline in our share price has been a concern to all of us who are shareholders of Wellgreen. Commodity prices have come under even more pressure in recent months, and while we have no control over that, those things within our control are moving forward in a meaningful way to advance the Wellgreen Project. Therefore, I would like to take this opportunity to reiterate our strategy and the work we are currently doing at Wellgreen.
"Since my joining Wellgreen, the focus has been less on exploration and more on development of this large unique asset, an important transition and new direction for the Company. We began our new technical initiative with metallurgical testwork, a critical first step in advancing a project from exploration toward the feasibility and development phase. This was a nine month process and is now complete (see press release dated March 1, 2017). We successfully achieved the primary objective of the program, which was to produce a quality, marketable bulk concentrate. This was a huge achievement for the Project and represents the first time this level of engineering work has been completed. With this information in hand, we expect to be able to identify a number of potential customers for our potential concentrate and to determine the shipping routes and costs that would be associated with those options. This level of work has never been completed on the Project before.
"We are also in the process of updating the resource model with new drilling information from the past three years. The metallurgical results combined with the new resource model will provide us with an improved technical understanding of the Project, which will allow us to update our mine plan. The objective of our studies is to examine ranges of throughput rates and efficiencies of various mining methods, and to refine capital costs and operating costs, all at varying commodity prices. AGP Mining Consultants and Ausenco Engineering (a global engineering, construction and project management firm) are working with our team on all of these items – they are very well respected for their work in the mining industry. The Company anticipates completing the updated resource estimation during the third quarter of 2017. As a result of the extensive work being conducted to advance the development of the Project, the Company is also considering preparation of an updated PEA or a pre-feasibility study.
"Our overriding goal is to de-risk the Project by completing the necessary steps and technical work required to gain a full understanding of the Project to enable us to develop the Project in the best, most efficient manner.
"This Project is quite unique – it is a large scale polymetallic deposit with significant PGM content located in a mining friendly jurisdiction with excellent infrastructure. With your continued support, including that of our institutional investors, we are advancing the Project towards realizing its potential."