Phoenix tailings to be the subject of testing
By Contributor
Kettle River Resources Ltd. (KRR) announced that Jeffrey B. Austin, P.Eng., president of International Metallurgical and Environmental Inc., has been contracted to review the economics of processing the Phoenix tailings material in the Greenwood Area. The Phoenix mine operated an open pit copper/gold mine and historic production records show approximately 12 million tonnes of tailings reside in two tailings storage facilities at the Phoenix mine site. KRR owns the former Phoenix minesite and the associated tailings deposits. KRR has historical reports and studies showing gold values that range from 0.2 g/t gold to 0.6 g/t gold. Higher gold values are shown to be more prevalent in areas with coarse tailings, associated with tailings dam construction using traditional cyclone technology to classify tailings. Historically, the Phoenix mine processed ore with a 0.98 percent copper and 1.1 g/t gold content. Historic gold recovery was in the range of 65 percent of the contained gold in a high-grade copper concentrate. In the past, gold recovery in the Phoenix milling process was significantly lower than the copper recovery due to a portion of the available gold being associated with non-copper sulphide mineralization (typically pyrite). These sulphides, which are available in the tailings materials, can be concentrated by new flotation processes to produce a gold bearing concentrate assaying in the range of 15 to 30 grams per tonne gold. The tailings contain about three percent sulphide mineralization by weight.
With the current price of gold in the range of 1200 dollars per ounce, lower grade gold resources are becoming more valuable, and this project has many attractive facets which the company is currently reviewing.
(Marketwire – Aug. 6, 2010)
