White Rock Minerals Ltd (ASX:WRM, OTCQX:WRMCF) has received positive results from the Morning Star Gold Mine at its Woods Point Gold Project in eastern Victoria, Australia, with gravity tabling and intensive leach testing recording gold recoveries of more than 98%.
Four samples taken from underground gold-bearing quartz reefs at Kenny’s, Stacpoole, McNally’s and Dickenson were delivered to Gekko Systems for testing aimed at extracting more gold at Morning Star prior for conversion into gold doré bars for sale.
Samples from McNally’s and Dickenson were chosen for the test-work and results showed the average reconciled head grade for McNally was 50 g/t gold and 34 g/t gold for Dickenson.
Using Wilfley tabling, both the McNally’s and Dickenson’s samples showed high amenability to gravity gold recovery, with the Dickenson sample having more than 80% recovery in less than 10% of the sample’s mass and McNally’s having more than 90% recovery, also in less than 10% of the mass.
Samples were also put through an intensive leaching process using the highest-grade table concentrate, and returned a head grade of between 1,927 g/t and 2,350 g/t and tail grades for all samples were 99%.
Into the league of gold producers
White Rock will now advance studies to see what it should do next to take advantage of the positive metallurgical results to improve gold recoveries and boost revenues.
Gold production will be ramped up in the remaining quarters of 2022 to move White Rock to the league of gold producers.
“Squeeze as much gold out”
White Rock managing director and CEO Matt Gill said: “These gold recovery results are exceptional and the company is now going to progress this to assess its commercial potential for a low capital cost opportunity to increase gold recoveries from around 80% to over 95%.
“Given the low volume but very-high grade nature of the anticipated material to be fed into the existing gravity gold processing plant, any incremental improvement in gold recovery goes straight to our bottom line.
“We want to squeeze as much gold out of this high-value rock as we can, safely and environmentally responsibly. A key part of the next phase will be whether to conduct this gold extraction step on-site or offsite.”
About Morning Star
White Rock holds 660 square kilometres of granted exploration licences over the Woods Point project, about 120 kilometres east of Melbourne, covering the Morning Star Gold Mine and the Rose of Denmark Mine.
The initial test-work is designed to improve the overall gold plant performance and includes piping, screens and crushing units being stripped, refurbished and improved in preparation for upcoming higher-grade material processing and metallurgical tests to improve the gold recovery efficiency of the existing plant.
The fully permitted and functional gravity gold processing plant has previously achieved gold recoveries of about 80%.
Morning Star is in the commissioning phase, processing initial parcels of low-grade material through the gold processing plant as White Rock continues underground development.