Gold: Vango eyes low cost processing at Marymia development

Metallurgical testing highlights the potential for low cost ore processing of ore at Vango Mining’s (ASX:VAN) Marymia project in WA’s Mid-West region.

Metallurgical test work assesses the material to be mined, to determine whether it can be processed economically.

It is one of the most crucial steps for companies looking to transform an exploration-stage project into a lucrative mining operation.

The test work found that low cost gravity concentration could recover 68.7 per cent of the gold from an 8 gram per tonne (g/t) composite sample from the two deposits while regular cyanide leaching to separate valuable minerals from waste rock took total gold recovery up to an excellent 97.4 per cent.

Good results were also achieved for a 3g/t gold composite from the Triple P deposit with gravity recovery of 64.3 per cent and leach recoveries of 97.3 per cent.

Vango plans to carry out further test work to further increase gold recoveries.

The company is currently drilling to test for extensions north of the Triple P and Zone B deposits where survey have indicated that extensions to the sulphide‐gold mineralisation could increase the strike length of the two deposits to over 1km.

This is a similar length to the company’s Trident resource, which stands at 410,000 ounces grading 8g/t gold.

Anything above 5g/t is generally considered high grade.

Subject to the results of the drill program, Vango will carry out a second stage of resource definition drilling to increase resources at the Marymia gold project.

Meanwhile, Genesis Minerals (ASX:GMD) looks to be on track to upgrade resources at its Ulysses gold project about 30km south of Leonora, WA, with its ongoing resource drilling program returning significant high grade hits.

Top results from the drill program include 6m at 10.23g/t gold from a depth of 154m, 4.52m at 9.71g/t gold from 145m and 5.46m at 10.71g/t gold from 229m.

The company plans to complete the drilling in November to upgrade and extend the top 200m of the resource in preparation for eventual mining.

Ulysses currently has a resource of 7.1 million tonnes at 3.3g/t gold for a contained resource of 760,400 ounces.

In other gold news today:

Alt Resources’ (ASX:ARS) drilling program has made several gold hits about 500m north of the historical VB open pit at its Bottle Creek gold project in WA’s Mt Ida gold belt.

Notable results include 15m at 4.64g/t gold from a depth of 57m and 6m at 3.76g/t gold.

Joining the drilling parade is Calidus Resources (ASX:CAI) which continues to record significant zones of gold mineralisation within the planned Klondyke open pit at its Warrawoona project in WA’s Pilbara region.

The results, which include 35m at 2.84g/t gold from surface and 23m at 2.55g/t gold from 15m, are expected to underpin an upgrade of the current resource to the very high certainty Measured category.