Alba to begin Llechfraith and waste tip bulk sampling

Alba Mineral Resources plc will next month begin bulk sampling from the Llechfraith target and the waste tip at its Clogau-St David’s gold mine, North Wales.

FEASIBILITY

Extraction of 120 tonnes of fines from the waste tip will begin with trenching planned for April.

Processing of bulk samples to gold concentrate will be in May followed by refining and smelting of gold concentrates in June.

Underground bulk sampling will involve extraction of approximately 150t rock from two newly developed raises.

Alba will mobilise to the site and begin preparations during April/May before carrying out blasting, ore removal and sorting over June/July.

During July/August the company will use its own on-site plant to process the ore to gold concentrate before refining and smelting.

Executive chairman George Frangeskides said that waste tip bulk sampling was a more straightforward exercise and would take less time.

“The underground bulk sampling, meanwhile, as one would expect, involves greater complexity in terms of engineering, logistics and safety aspects, not to mention the blasting of a significant volume of rock and its removal to surface for sorting and processing.”

He added that work on the gold target, deep within lower Llechfraith, would allow the first assessment of the overall gold grade in never previously mined workings.

Alba will then be able to confirm the economic feasibility of restarting commercial mining from the “UK’s largest gold mine.” 

The start of both exercises follow Alba’s completion of the statutory notification filed in February.

Alba added it had also processed the samples, taken during the same month, from No. 4 level at the Llechfraith target to produce heavy mineral concentrates.

Composites of the concentrates were with a third-party refining facility, with results expected shortly.

Results are also expected next week from the airborne geophysical survey over Alba’s key regional gold targets, beginning with Clogau.