Prodigy nails it at Hyperion as testwork returns excellent gold recoveries

• Prodigy Gold’s metallurgical testwork has returned excellent recoveries above 90% from oxide and transition samples
• Results provide confidence in the Hyperion and Tethys lodes within its Hyperion deposit
• Optimisation test work to be carried out along with more work on fresh samples

Special Report: Prodigy Gold’s testwork has returned excellent gold recoveries from the oxide and transition samples sourced from the Tethys and Hyperion lodes within its Hyperion deposit in the NT’s Tanami region.

Early metallurgy work on samples from the two lodes indicated that a conventional carbon-in-leach plant could deliver 48-hour recoveries ranging up to 96.4%, with a higher calculated gold grade of 3.15g/t than the composite interval of 2.56g/t.

The transition composite delivered recoveries ranging from 92.7% to 96.6% with a gold grade of 8.43g/t compared to the composite sample grade of 6.18g/t, while a fresh composite had recoveries of 64.6-72%.

Notably for Prodigy Gold (ASX:PRX), cyanide consumption was moderate and no lime was required for oxide and transition samples while the fresh composite required minimal lime addition.

This has the potential to substantially lower processing costs.

Results from the test work will provide further confidence for the Hyperion resource estimate when considering the potential for future economic extraction.

Hyperion sits in the rich Tanami region that also plays host to Newmont’s 20Moz Callie mine, and currently has a resource of 8.64Mt at 1.5g/t for 407,000oz of contained gold.

Confidence builds with testwork

“Prodigy Gold has highlighted the importance of the Hyperion gold deposit to the company with the recent submission of an application for a mineral lease to the NT Government,” managing director Mark Edwards said.

“When complete, the information gathered from this second phase and earlier metallurgical testwork will be incorporated into a detailed mine plan study for development of the Hyperion project to support the Mineral Lease application.

“IMO has previously completed metallurgical testwork on sample material from the Suess lodes at Hyperion, and this new dataset from the second phase of testwork will provide confidence in the Hyperion and Tethys lodes of the Hyperion deposit.

“Excellent recoveries were received for the oxide and transition zones. Further work, however, is still required to better understand the lower recoveries in the fresh material, this will be concluded through diagnostic leach testwork.

“In addition, drilling is planned to follow-up the high-grade results from HYRC24004, which reported 10m at 15.9g/t Au from 177m, and assist with structural and lithological analysis of the mineralised system at Hyperion.

“Prodigy Gold is planning to apply for co-funding under the NT Government’s Round 18 Resourcing the Territory Grants through the Resourcing the Territory initiative, to assist with this drilling.”

Metallurgical testing

The results received to date came from stages 1 and 2 of the metallurgical test work with cyanide leach testing yielding excellent recoveries from the oxide and transition samples while the fresh composite returned lower recoveries.

Gravity gold was also recovered but at a lower rate than that previously recorded for material from Seuss.

PRX notes that oxide and transition reagent optimisation tests are now underway while a fresh composite grind optimisation test at 53 microns will be carried out to further investigate the role of finer grinding on gold recovery on fresh material.

Additionally, two fresh composite reagent optimisation tests will be carried out to determine if better recoveries are possible through minor adjustments to the metallurgical process.

This article was developed in collaboration with Prodigy Gold, 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.