The Asia Miner

JAN-MAR 2016

The ASIA Miner - Reporting Important Issues to Mining Companies in the Asia Pacific Region

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Volume 13 • Issue 1 | 2016 | ASIA Miner | 5 Road to Success CMC has guaranteed to have frst ore on the surface by July 1, 2016. Chris Giles says Havilah is working with CMC to see how the open pit design may be altered slightly to access ore a little earlier rather than removing all overburden before starting. Doing this will push cash fow forward a bit, which suits both parties. Processing CMC's responsibility is the mining and Havilah's the processing, which will be done in a simple gravity plant owing to the fact that the gold is free, coarse-grained and nuggetty. Chris Giles says the deposit is unique in the way it was formed and because it is not conventional, Havilah would have had diffculty attracting fnance even in a good market. "We think it is hydromorphic gold which has eroded from a primary sulphide deposit nearby and trickled down the slopes in solution, ending up in a gutter or drain above a very graphitic shale unit. This is like a natural CIP plant which trapped the gold in a layer about three metres thick at 70-75 metres below the surface. The gold has grown like potatoes in the soil. "The coarseness of the gold has made estimating a resource using conventional assaying methods somewhat hit and miss. To overcome this we collected the largest samples we could with our drilling rig using a specially adapted bit. Project partner CMC has thirteen 777 haul trucks in operation at Portia.

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