QMines shares got a nice bump this morning after Australia’s first zero carbon copper and gold explorer achieved very high copper and gold recoveries during initial metallurgical testwork on mineralisation from its Mt Chalmers project in North Queensland.

Testwork on stringer mineralisation resulted in copper concentrate with recoveries of as high as 97% copper and 87% gold. The stringer mineralisation represents the bulk of the resource at QMines’ (ASX:QML) Mt Chalmers project.

The news edged shares up nearly 6% to an intra-day peak of 28.5c.

QMines (ASX:QML) share price chart

Meanwhile, testwork on the massive sulphide mineralisation delivered copper-lead concentrate with recoveries of 89% copper, 77% zinc and 43% gold and zinc concentrate with recoveries of 84% zinc and 43% gold.

Additional gold recovery from zinc concentrate tail using cyanide leach generated 98.4% total gold recovery.

This metallurgical testwork program was designed to establish a preliminary flowsheet and assess the ability to recover these metals into separate flotation concentrates.

Importantly, the extremely positive results provide an early indication that QMines can achieve high recoveries from all concentrates using a simple low-cost flotation process.

“It is very pleasing to see such excellent results from this initial study for the Mt Chalmers project,” executive chairman Andrew Sparke said.

“Although further work is required, these initial results demonstrate the development potential of the project.”

Increasing grades 

The stringer mineralisation used in the testwork had a head grade of 1.22% copper, 0.2% lead, 0.02% zinc and 1.05 grams per tonne (g/t) gold.

Flotation testwork was successful in producing a copper rougher concentrate, increasing grades to up to 12.3% copper and 4.6g/t gold.

The massive sulphide samples tested had a head grade of 1.28% copper, 1.42% lead, 3.51% zinc and 4.31g/t gold.

Flotation was successful in producing rougher concentrates of copper-lead and zinc, raising grades to up to 15.6% copper, 15.1% lead, 16.6% zinc and 46.9g/t gold.

QMines
Selected pieces of diamond drill core used for the metallurgical testwork at Mt Chalmers

“Further work is now being undertaken to improve overall recoveries, develop a cleaner flotation and improve flowsheet optimisation,” Sparke said.

 

This article was developed in collaboration with QMines, 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.