Revival Gold favours low-cost start plan
The ability to produce a high-grade sulphide concentrate from an underground operation could reduce the capital Revival Gold requires to build and expand its Beartrack-Arnett gold project in Idaho, USA, chief executive Hugh Agro told Mining Journal at the 2023 Precious Metals Summit in Beaver Creek, Colorado, USA.
Testwork has shown it is possible to produce a gold concentrate containing 50gpt, which is enough to possibly truck it to a processing facility rather than having to build a processing facility on site.
"This is about four times the grade we can generate from an open pit concentrate. At 50gpt, it becomes interesting to truck it to someone else, which means we can decrease the potential capex outlay, and sell or toll process the concentrate," said Agro.
First Majestic Silver's Jerritt Canyon plant in northeast Nevada is the closest sulphide processing plant to Beartrack-Arnett, and there are other options including the Twin Creeks and Goldstrike plants of Nevada Gold Mines (NGM), and possibly I-80 Gold's Lone Tree plant, once that has restarted.
"We have alternatives. There is a huge capital investment in the NGM plants and they will want to keep them producing for as long as possible, so they will be hungry for concentrates," said Agro.
Australian model
Agro said the company has been receiving interest from several Australian gold producers, who are becoming more interested in assets in the USA. He said they have a different approach to mine building than is typically seen in North America.
"Australians tend to get a deposit into production and follow a phased project development approach. All the big mines in North America started out as small mines, and so the focus on drilling off massive ore bodies is in conflict with what investors are asking companies to do, which is getting to free cash flow as quickly as possible," said Agro.
Revival completed a prefeasibility study for a first phase heap leach operation in July, which would produce 65,000ozpa over an eight-year mine life. In the near term, the company aims to collect the remaining environmental baseline data and the technical studies recommended by the PFS.
The company envisions a second phase 2500-3000tpd underground sulphide project, to grow production to 150,000ozpa, and a potential third phase for an open pit mill resource, which could result in 250,000ozpa of production.
"We intend to start the permitting next year once the baseline is complete. We have 30 years of baseline data on an existing plan of operations. We have a water treatment facility the regulators know works, and we don't have to test different locations for our facilities because most are already built. By 2026, we want to be in a construction situation," said Agro.
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