Astral Resources reports gold recoveries over 98pc at Feysville

• AAR reports recoveries over 98% gold at Kamperman deposit at Feysville project
• Project is close to world-class gold mines near Kalgoorlie, WA
• Testwork paves the way for Feysville satellite pits for Mandilla processing plant

Special Report: Astral Resources has reported gold recoveries exceeding 98% during maiden metallurgical testing at the Kamperman deposit at its Feysville gold project near the KCGM super pit in Kalgoorlie.

The project sits within the north-north-west trending Norseman-Wiluna Greenstone Belt, home to world-class deposits such as Northern Star Resources’ (ASX:NST) Golden Mile Super Pit, Gold Fields’ St Ives gold mine and Westgold Resources’ (ASX:WGX) Beta Hunt gold mine.

Kamperman itself hosts a resource estimate of 2Mt at 1.3g/t gold for 83.8koz of contained gold and 0.7Mt at 1.3g/t gold for 27.4koz of contained gold at the Rogan Josh deposit.

This provides a strong foundation for the project to become a source of satellite ore feed for a future operation based on Astral Resources’ (ASX:AAR) flagship Mandilla gold project.

And now those plans have been bolstered, with the metallurgical samples resulting in an average overall gold recovery of 98.1% at Kamperman and an average overall gold recovery of 91.5% at the Rogan Josh deposit.

The company said the testwork has demonstrated exceptionally high recoveries using the same low-cost processing route proposed for its Mandilla project.

Watch: Astral shooting for gold success

Feysville to be included in Mandilla PFS

The results confirm that the Kamperman and Rogan Josh deposits are amenable to processing at the Mandilla process plant and will yield high overall gold recoveries from a coarse grind, with high gravity recovery, low reagents consumption and rapid leach kinetics.

The company said the results essentially pave the way for the inclusion of the Feysville deposits into the Mandilla Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS), which remains on track for completion this quarter.

“These metallurgical test results from the Kamperman and Rogan Josh deposits clearly demonstrate that the simple, low-cost processing pathway being pursued in the Mandilla PFS will also be suitable for processing Feysville ore,” AAR managing director Marc Ducler said.

“Our intention with the Mandilla PFS is to incorporate the Feysville deposits as valuable sources of higher-grade satellite ore feed into the proposed 2.5Mtpa Mandilla process plant.

Astral plans to repeat the testwork with higher initial free cyanide concentrations, with the expectation that the overall gold recovery will increase significantly as a result.

“All the technical and financial inputs for the Mandilla PFS have now been received and it remains on track for completion during the current quarter,” Ducler said.

“Assay results from recently completed air-core and reverse circulation drilling at Feysville will be announced later this month.

“Reverse circulation drilling has recently commenced at the Hestia deposit at Mandilla and will soon commence at the newly acquired Spargoville project.”

This article was developed in collaboration with Astral Resources, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.