Following a positive feasibility study, Yamana Gold (YRI-T) has decided to put its new Fazenda Nova gold project, in Goias state, Brazil, into production.
The planned operation is a group of small open pits with a heap-leach plant, to produce at an average 36,000 oz. annually for four years. According to the feasibility estimates, the operation will need only US$6.6 million to get into production.
The three open pits exploit a reserve of 5.7 million tones grading 0.9 gram gold per tonne. Pit designs have an average strip ratio of 0.99 and the pits would be mined at an annual rate of 1.5 million tonnes. The reserves are in rippable saprolite material, which would not require blasting.
Cash operating costs are estimated at US$175 per oz., with an additional US$11 per oz. for royalties and taxes. The feasibility study puts the undiscounted net present value of the project at US$15 million, based on cash flow from US$350-per-oz. gold; that falls to US$11.5 million at a 5% discount rate.
The planned metallurgical plant uses a crusher and agglomeration system (in fact, the largest cost element in the project is for cement used in agglomeration). The agglomerated ore would be leached once and the gold recovered from leachate using a carbon absorption-desorption circuit, atmospheric stripping, and electrowinning.
Metallurgical designers estimate a 90-day leach cycle will recover 88% of the gold, although testing got higher recoveries over shorter leach cycles.
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