Kentor Gold (ASX: KGL) has advanced plans for early gold production at the 516,000 gold ounce Burnakurra mine by spending A$1.3 million for the acquisition of plant and equipment.
The purchase was made from the company's cash reserves.
The acquisition is another step for Kentor towards gold production in the June quarter of 2012, with a Feasibility study forecast to be delivered in the September quarter of 2011.
The new equipment included:
- A two stage crushing plant;
- Heap leaching equipment including an agglomerator, conveyors and stacker;
- Carbon absorption tanks; and
- Elution column and gold room.
The elution column and gold room will be used in the processing circuit, which provides Kentor with a cost effective means of re-commissioning the plant.
The crushing equipment will upgrade the throughput capacity of the plant and Kentor said the heap leaching equipment could be used to establish a heap leaching operation to treat the low grade ore at Burnakurra.
Burnakura currently has an Inferred resource of; 10.6 million tonnes at 1.5 grams per tonne (g/t) gold for 516,000 ounces, with a 0.5g/t cut-off.
In other Kentor news, the company is moving towards an initial resource estimate at the Jervois copper project, which is anticipated to be released in the first half of July 2011.
Jervois covers 38 square kilometres and consists of a 12 kilometre strike length where Kentor said a number of copper–gold and separate silver–lead–zinc prospects have been identified.