Expanding Pine Cove By Cannabilizing Nugget Pond mill
My research on the two mills relative to Macs statement that the Pine Cove Mill will be expanded by adding parts of the Nuggett Pond mill is based on the much higher recoveries of the Nuggett Pond mill.
Historic gold recoveries on Hammerdown mineralization at Nugget Pond were over 97.0% during past Richmont operations .
As part of the 2022 FS , recent metallurgical test work on new samples from Hammerdown confirmed gold recoveries of 95.5% can be expected through the whole-ore leach circuit with a grind size of 80% passing 50 microns.
Pine Cove recovery is at best 87%.
The reason is that Pine Cove does not have the whole leach circuit and grinding circuit capable, with cyanide , of reaching 97% recovery rates.
A 10% gain in recovery means 10% more gold ounces produced for little no extra operating costs.....free cash flow.
And a good dore becomes a gold bar.
It is just my guess that this addition to the Pine Cove Mill is the upgrade requested by NFG.
There is plenty of space available at Pine Cove to add the 700 tpd crusher and ball mills of Nugget Pond or indeed the 2400 tpd of the Duck Pond mill....or indeed the 1400 tpd capacity of Fireflys Nugget Pond mill.
In my opinion..and it is only that...we are entering rapidly evolving and varied developments here that, at some disclosure point, will see a major explosion in the share price....
FWIW..