Alba Mineral Resources plc said it had received assay results from gold concentrates up to 1,000 g/t, with average head grades of 1.7 g/t from the historic waste tip at its Clogau-St David’s gold mine in Wales.
WASTE TIP
The 2,833 m² waste tip comprises ore rock mined but discarded and not processed for its gold content during previous periods of mining.
Phase I sampling in 2021 returned gold grades of up to 9.89 g/t with average grades of up to 4.37 g/t for the fine fractions and 3.80 g/t for the medium fractions.
PHASE II
Phase II began in January 2022 over five pits, first assay results returned gold grades of up to 11.35 g/t.
Today’s assays are of 81kg of total gold concentrates produced at the Clogau pilot processing plant from the five pits dug in January 2022 at the waste tip.
Alba processed 8.76 tonnes of fines material with the average grade of the final high-grade concentrates being 503 g/t.
An average head grade of 1.7 g/t was achieved for the material processed through the processing plant.
This was higher than the average of 0.95 g/t achieved from the initial sampling of the same pits.
Alba said that this indicated the sampling exercise under-represented the overall grade due to the nuggety effect of the ore.
“A positive assessment will enable Alba to proceed with a mining plan and formal planning application to produce gold commercially from the waste tip’s estimated 4,000 tonnes of fines material,” added the company.