Scots gold miner hails good progress
Scotgold Resources, the company behind a gold mine near Tyndrum, has boosted its stockpile of ore for processing after a strong month of activity in June.
The company said it had reached high-grade ore zones far more quickly than it had expected at the Cononish project during a month of uninterrupted mining activity.
In an update to investors, the company said it had accessed ore at levels that peaked at 40 grammes per tonne in a zone where it now plans to continue mining for two months.
It said the achievement was thanks to its “strategy of combining consistency and stability of the mine and process plant operations, while opening multiple faces of ore in the underground mine itself ”.
The volume of ore on its stockpile has increased although a bearing failure in the process plant held back efforts to make significant inroads towards achieving full ramp up.
“The issue is expected to be resolved in the coming days but serves to demonstrate the types of ‘one off issues’ that can impact production which are being targeted by the risk analysis approach being implemented by the company at Cononish,” it said.
The company said it had managed to minimise unplanned downtime arising from the bearing failure. The extra ore stockpiled as a result of mining activity is expected to be processed by the plant in due course with the aim of making its second shipment in the first half of July.
“Gold ore sent to the refiners in May was able to be refined through normal treatment processes, providing validation of Scotgold's process plant production,” it said.