Worth a lookI have been watching the Castle Mountain Project since 1990 when I worked as an exploration geologist and then Mine Geologist for Viceroy Resources,the developer of the mine. I am buying in to EQX because I believe that the most solid way to invest my money is to look for near term producers, RPM as an example. One note of caution on the plan to do ROM leaching of JSLA pit fill. I drilled many dozens of holes into JSLA and South Domes, Jumbo-OroBelle. The biggest impression one got while exploring for gold was that the deposit was full of swelling clay. I fought and won an internal battle to ensure that the crushed ore was agglomerated with Portland cement before going on the leach pad. Does anyone gave an idea of what happens to leach piles that contain free clay??? Well they fail. Clay migrates with the cyanide solution and collects in layers that blind off the ore below. Additionally this is a coarse gold deposit, no other way to describe it. Because of this, recovery of larger gold particles will be limited, the cyanide will put a nice polish on the ‘nuggety’ Gold as it dissolves the outside layer only. Coarse gold, I panned free gold in all samples, down to below cutoff grade. I had the original concept to agglomerate the tailings from the 1000 Tpd gravity circuit mill with the minus 3/8 inch crushed ore going to the leach pad, it worked and improved recoveries over straight heap leaching. One big factor, the mill did not require a tailing pond... industry firsts.
Clay is in the Castle Mountain deposit. It was once a clay mine where toilets were made from the porcelain clay. Clay and coarse gold better be front and center in any evaluation of JSLA pit fill in a ROM heap leaching operation. Sounds like a good approach?, IMHO better have good data to back it up, it was a CLAY mine
not investment advice, DYODD.