Troy Resources Ltd. has completed commissioning of the processing plant at its Karouni gold project in north-central Guyana, where construction activities began in February. The mill was the last major project component to be put through the commissioning process, undergoing an extended performance test under full load conditions. Operating at steady state, all pressure and temperature readings were recorded within specified limits.
As of late October, the mill was being fed a limited amount of ore to enable pressure and flow-rate adjustment to all systems. The smelting system was programed and ready to run. All operating personnel, including supervisors and technical staff, were in place.
Once final adjustments have been made to the mill and processing circuits, ore feed will be steadily increased toward the plant’s nominal design capacity of 80,000 mt/m, with this level of throughput expected to be achieved in early 2016.
Karouni mining operations were ongoing while plant commissioning was in progress. The run-of-mine stockpile was built 137,000 mt of ore at an average grade of 2.41g/mt, and mining had reached the harder rock in the transition zone of one of the pits.
Karouni development was based on a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) completed in January 2014. Mine development will include two open pits and one underground mine feeding a conventional carbon-in-leach gold plant. The PEA assumes 5.2 million mt of material will be processed at an average grade of 4.13 g/mt to recover 633,000 oz of gold over a seven-year mine life.
Initial capital costs to develop the Karouni project came in at about $86.6 million. Life-of-mine all-in cash costs have been estimated at $805/oz.
