Micron test plant enters production

A consortium of companies led by Micron Mining, a private American firm, has built a facility to test for gold recovery from the sandy material of a property in southern Nevada’s Moapa Valley. Gordon Lee, president of Micron, said the companies have spent US$15 million over a number of years on work which culminated in the construction of the test plant to treat the project’s ore. The plant was started up during the first week of March.

“It took over four years’ work to get a standardized assay procedure on this complex ore,” he said. Conventional leaching methods proved unsuccessful. Silver and platinum elements have been identified in the material.

Two publicly traded companies, Micron Metals Canada (ASE) and Force Resources (COATS), are involved in the project consortium.

The test plant will treat 10 tons of concentrate (recovered from 200 tons ore) per day. Should it prove successful, Lee said a plant for commercial production, probably 10 times that size and costing US$25- 50 million, could be built.

Micron says it has had ore from the Muddy River area (Red Hill samples) of its property tested by Assayers Ontario Ltd. of Toronto, the samples revealing 0.02 oz. gold per ton by standard fire assay. The samples were then treated by Micron’s “Micron II process,” which Lee described as a process whereby acid is applied to the ore under heat and pressure. (Glass- lined pressure vessels are used.)

The resulting precipitate was subsequently fired to metal by standard procedures, confirming an actual recovery of 0.21 oz., Micron says. Another test from the same area (Sphinx samples) confirmed an actual recovery of 0.18 oz. Further testing has confirmed an average grade of about 0.2 oz.

Micron has proven reserves of about 100,000 tons and two million tons of probable reserves, Lee said, as well as a large tonnage in the possible category.