Encouraging metallurgical result, ‘a solid step up’ for Surefire Resources’ (ASX: SRN) Yidby Gold Project - Kalkine Media

Highlights

• The column test work at the Yidby Project achieved 66.3% gold recovery on a coarse crush size of 100% passing 6.3mm.
• Gold content increased by 68% over the previous drill assay results at the project.
• The results indicate that previous gold grades were significantly underreported.

Surefire Resources NL (ASX: SRN) has released the final results of the ongoing metallurgical column leach test work at its Yidby Gold Project, Western Australia. The project encompasses substantial mineralised zones, with widths of up to 80m with a strike length of 3km. These zones remain open both along strike and at depth.

Drilling conducted so far has revealed mineralisation in zones of high-grade gold with 5g/t Au up to 82g/t Au, as well as broader zones with 0.2g/t Au and 1.5g/t Au. The metallurgical work has concluded that these results might be underreported.

Details of the testwork results

The company concluded column test work on mineralised drill core. This stage of testing was a follow-up to the preliminary sighter-level testing conducted in 2022. Preliminary sighter test work had reported gold recoveries of up to 9.55%.

Results of previous test work and present metallurgical testwork indicated the presence of high proportion of coarse free gold at Yidby Gold project with a particle size of less than 0.5mm.

The column leach test work was conducted in Perth by ALS Global, and the program was conducted over ten months with several additional assaying and re-testing steps.

The testwork reported a gold recovery of 66.3% on a coarse crush size of 100% passing 6.33mm. The result indicated that gold recovery would improve further with a finer crush size. This provides a considerable upside for the resource grades.

The column leach test work reported 68% increase in gold content over past drill assay results because of prominence of coarse gold at the Yidby project. These results confirm the findings of sighter test work that the drilling results were significantly underreported and underestimate the quantity of gold hosted at Yidby Gold’s mineralised lithologies.

The test work indicates the potential for a low-cost heap or vat leach operation.

The company said that 66.3% of gold recovery at 100% passing 6.3mm is an encouraging result. The gold was recovered with 69 days and the leach work had not completed as appreciable extraction of gold was going on.

SRN shares traded at AU$0.010 apiece at the time of writing on 18 March 2024.