THE ARGILLITE ANOMALY In the 2019 tech reort - Argillite is an approx - 10.9% - ore value
Now here is where i fid it rather interesting -
If one refers to the 2012 metallurgical report, Argillites are said to be, 67% of ores
page 5 - 3.1 - Grindability Chart
https://www.spanishmountaingold.com/site/assets/files/3234/metallurgy_of_the_spanish_mountain_gold_deposit.pdf
If one refers to the deposit picture - page 4
One can see that the gold is in the Argillite above , midrange and below main gold zone
Main Zone - has significant gold with in the Argillites.
North Zone - Argillites is very predominate
Simply zoom in and look for the descriptive word that addesses the - Argillites.
Argillites possess graphites.
To improve gold recovery -
Two gravity concentrators introduced in the flowsheet
inwhich reomves the graphites + waste ores trying t oachieve less than, 1% before final float ....
The intial pre float uses water.
While the second uses acid.
What if...?
What if using the first water concentrate float was kept
Then... swap the acid out for another form of additive that assists the graphite to expel
Graphite is known to be hydrophobic- naturally floats on water
Some miners use - pine oil - to assist graphite recovety in flotation recoveries.
Notice in this report the ores are ground to a 184 mesh.
Why point all this out ?
Seem no matter the report i read on the ore composition , the ore compositions vary.
This 2012 metallurgical report clearly shows the significance of how much - Argillite there is.
Simply look at the picture on page 4 -
The Argillite ores must be handled and processed = large portion of gold is in the Argillites.
Perhaps a revision on the second pre float could be implimented to
address more recoveries of the graphite without the use of acids which ultimately
dissolve the grasphite ....
Revising the flowsheet with the notion of....
Extracting more graphite in a fashion that doesn't destroy would be, ideal.
It would be interesting t osee a new flow sheet with this implementation.
The original simply looks at the ore body in one manner = get the gold out.
Perhaps the flowsheet needs another approacg which accommodates a measure
that runs the oresthe second time with a pine oil - before final acid float.
67% of the ores contain, Argillites.
Just how much graphites are in the, Argillites ?
The only indication that proves positive inshowing there is graphite...
Is the indication....graphite poses a hurdle inwhich t oremove in order to achieve better gold recovery.
Without factroing all 27,000,000 million - ore tonnes....
And if one only factored the proposed 39,000,000 ore tonnes ( current porposed PFS ) numbers
The value of Argillites would amass to = 26,130,000 tonnes
Which begs - how much graphite are in the Argillites ?
26,130,000
x ( % grade graphite )
---------------------------
???
Some graphite deposits have very high values....
In Canada sometimes they run in the range of - 14% to 25%
While others run, 3-4% and others 1.5% ( examples )
HYPOTHETICAL ?
A 3-4 % grade would put the graphite potential in the ball park of,
1,000,000 tonnes.
Again... the flowsheet would need modifications to preserve the graphite
instead of running it through a second concentrator of acid.
Not investment advice....
Simply crunching the numbers as per potential graphite.
Such should have been factored long ago - dual resource - stronger economics....
But... suchis just my own opinion.
Cheers...