Intrepid buoyed by Casposo recoveries

Intrepid Minerals (IAU-T) is pleased with metallurgical tests that indicate gold recovery by simple gravity concentration averages 36.6% from samples taken at the Casposo gold and silver deposit in Argentina’s San Juan province.

Bottle-roll tests have already shown that a conventional grinding and recovery circuit could reap gold and silver recoveries of 94% and 81%.

The Instituto de Investigaciones Mineras, in Argentina, did gravity tests on samples from zones: Inca, Mercado, Kamila and B-vein.

Seven 10-kg samples were crushed and passed through a minus-100 mesh size sieve. This material was passed through a Falcon concentrator.

The samples graded from 3.7 to 53 grams gold and 17-496 grams silver per tonne. Gold recovery varied from 29% to 42%; silver recovery, from 7% to 17% (averaging 12.5%).

The gold is found in stockwork-quartz veins, which cut altered intermediate-to-felsic volcanic rocks.

At May 2004, the Kamila zone had an indicated resource of 775,000 tonnes grading 5.57 grams gold and 87.5 grams silver per tonne. The estimate is based on a gold price of US$375 per oz. and a gold-equivalent cutoff of 1.4 grams per tonne.