Xanadu Mines Ltd (ASX:XAM) has successfully completed preliminary metallurgy work on samples from its Kharmagtai copper-gold project in Mongolia.
Strong results from the flotation test work saw copper recoveries of up to 95.3%, gold recoveries up to 95.4% and silver recoveries up to 89.9%.
Optimisation of the metallurgical performance will be achieved with additional test work.
Dr Andrew Stewart, CEO, commented: “These positive metallurgical test results provide more confidence with the drilling underway to expand the resource by targeting mineralisation in the tourmaline breccia.
“The new results also complement the previous metallurgical studies undertaken on the shallow copper-gold stockwork zones of the orebody.”
Kharmagtai porphyry copper-gold project
The 79.5% owned Kharmagtai project is located in south Gobi, Mongolia.
It is an advanced exploration project with a 66 square kilometre mining licence.
Kharmagtai contains a 203 million tonne JORC compliant resource containing 680,000 tonnes of copper and 2.2 million ounces of gold with significant exploration upside.
It is a large porphyry style deposit with multiple near-surface, gold-rich zones and mineralisation outcropping at surface.
The resource represents only a small portion of a potentially large mineral system.
Exploration is targeting a fourth shallow gold-porphyry centre to support at least a 5 million tonnes per annum operation for 10 years at 0.6% to 1.0% copper equivalent.
A new drilling program is planned to follow-up significant results from the recently completed program.
Metallurgy details
Preliminary metallurgical test work was completed on diamond core from high-grade tourmaline breccia mineralisation at the Altan Tolgoi deposit within the Kharmagtai project.
The metallurgical test work was aimed at producing a float concentrate of copper, gold and silver from the 30 kilogram sample.
Copper recoveries into a rougher concentrate ranged between 93.6% to 95.3%.
Gold recoveries into a rougher concentrate ranged between 93.4% to 95.4%.
Silver recoveries into a rougher concentrate ranged between 86.7% to 89.9%.
Analysis
These early stage flotation test results are exceptional and indicate that a standard crushing, grinding and flotation process is all that will be required to extract all the economic minerals from the tourmaline breccia mineralisation.
Xanadu foresee no significant hurdles to producing a high quality concentrate via standard
processing pathways from the tourmaline breccia mineralisation at Altan Tolgoi.
This bodes well for project economics as the company looks to monetise Kharmagtai’s shallow deposits containing gold-rich copper resources.
Mineralisation at Kharmagtai outcrops at surface and remains open at depth.
The JORC resource is thought to be only a small portion of a large mineral system providing for significant resource upside potential through exploration.
The share price is up 75% year to date, currently trading at $0.195 per share.
Xanadu maintains support from an Australia-wide broker who has a Speculative Buy recommendation and price target of $0.51 per share.
The company remains leveraged to exploration upside with an active exploration program in progress at its Oyut Ulaan copper-gold project also located in Mongolia.
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