West Red Lake recovers $750K in gold during Madsen mill cleanup
West Red Lake Gold Mines Ltd. says the Madsen mill cleanup and gold recovery program at its 100% owned Madsen Mine located in the Red Lake Gold District was quite profitable.
The company carried out a preliminary phase of the Gold Recovery Program in late 2023 that recovered 415 troy ounces (“oz”) of gold (“Au”) with proceeds of approximately $750,000.
Based on the significant amount of gold recovered during the initial investigation, a second and more comprehensive phase of the Gold Recovery Program was initiated in early 2024 with a focus on the ball mills and the semi-autogenous grinding (“SAG”) mills. The SAG mills are the primary or first stage grinder for material entering the mill, which is then followed by the secondary ball mills. Photographs of sample material being recovered from the mills are below in Figures 1 and 2.
It is anticipated that the Company may recover at least 2,500 oz Au from the clean up.
As part of the second phase of the Gold Recovery Program, the Company has engaged a firm in February 2024 which specializes in gold mill cleanup and recovery. The Gold Recovery Program is expected to be completed by the end of May 2024.
Shane Williams, President & CEO, stated, "Less than a year after acquiring the Madsen Mine we are already seeing real value being uncovered from this asset. Our immediate focus has been recovering gold throughout the Madsen processing plant with our second cleanup program nearing completion. With gold prices over US$2,300/oz, this material could be a potential one-off source of cash flow during 2024.”
It was known that the previous operator had reconciliation issues between the mined ore and the milled ore at the Madsen Mine.
After finding substantial gold locked up in the circuits during the preliminary phase of the Gold Recovery Program, the Company launched a thorough technical investigation of the mill and mill workings to understand the degree to which this contributed to the previous operator’s reconciliation issues.
In certain locations on site, installation errors had created sizeable “gold traps”, resulting in a notable amount of gold remaining in these physical gold traps instead of making it through the mill. Gold was found physically trapped in ill-fitting liners in the ball mill, in the SAG mills and in uncleaned filters, all of which certainly would have impacted the previous operator’s reconciliation issues.
The WRLG Madsen Mine team is making adjustments to the mill workings and processes to ensure that similar loss will not be repeated.
The Company looks forward to reporting the total amount of gold recovered on completion of the Gold Recovery Program.
FIGURE 1. Photograph of sample concentrate material with coarse visible gold collected as part of the cleanup program.
FIGURE 2. Photograph of material to be processed from the mill cleanup program.
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