Scotgold Resources Ltd announced it had made its first shipment of gold concentrate from Cononish mine near Tyndrum, Scotland.
PRODUCTION
The company added that the mine has been producing both gold concentrate and gravity separated gold Dore after resolving outstanding technical issues.
Scotgold aims to open multiple faces of ore in the underground mine as well as further improve safe production.
It also expects to increase production and issue new estimates of gold production for 2021.
SHIPMENT
On 11 May, the Australian-owned company shipped 25 tonnes of concentrate at an average of 182.4 g/t gold, exceeding the target of 150 g/t, and achieving maximum price within the terms of the offtake agreement.
The company said that modest amounts of gravity gold Dore were also produced and sent to refiners for further treatment.
OUTAGES REDUCTION
Scotgold added that performance of the mine and process plant had to date been intermittent although during April and May the mine and process plant achieved near design rates of production.
“The company is also pleased with the quality of ore that has been mined and produced through the process plant.
“The current limited available number of ore faces does limit our immediate ability to focus on the highest-grade ore zones of the Cononish ore body.
“Having proved that the mine and processing plant can operate as designed, our focus is on reducing outages through more efficient management of spares and having further redundancy in our mining mobile fleet with the arrival of the second haulage DUX truck.”