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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold and Silver Juniors, Mid-tiers and Producers -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jennifersilversun who wrote (54983)	1/3/2008 11:46:51 PM
From: Claude Cormier	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 78434

Thanks. Seems like good reasons. But the spring is coming.

To: jennifersilversun who wrote (54983)	1/4/2008 1:43:00 AM
From: Amark$p	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78434

Thanks, good EPM article. Here's a little analysis/educated guess work... From the Tech Report, Copper production was scheduled to start 60 days after the gold production. See Table 17.7.4 of Tech Report. europeanminerals.com "· The first saleable gold will be produced towards the end of month 1 after allowing for inventory build-up. · Gold and Copper sales from HGCF concentrate will only take place after some inventory has been built up in the smelter pipeline. This results in an increase the revenues in month 4." _____ From the article: "Bert’s forecast that the first gold pour from the gold processing line would take place before the end of December was met on December 22nd so he had just time to get home for Christmas after entertaining local dignitaries at the mine... Cold commissioning of the plant started in October and hot commissioning, the introduction of ore, started a month later. The gold process line will be the first to start and has resulted in gold being poured before the end of the year. However, the main one, producing copper concentrate, will take longer and won’t get going until the first quarter of 2008. As Bert says commissioning in winter is not ideal but the plan is to build up to full production of 4.2 million tonnes a year by the second quarter of 2008. Currently he is pleased to report that there is ore in the mills and cyanide in the tanks so there is no reason not to expect the target to be met." __________ So the real news is EPM appears to have started one of its Production lines but is about 60 days behind in commissioning its other production line. This was previously announced by EPM which has recently stated commercial production by 2Q08. However, the way I read this article, one of the production lines is fully operational. I am assuming the LGCF production line is the one producing as it requires only Leaching while the HGCF production line requires both Flotation and Leaching... Refer to Table 16.13, Year 1 production is 83,719 gold ounces from the LGCF line and 57,491 from the HGCF line. ________________ From the Tech Report: "The Varvarinskoye treatment facility will be designed to recover gold and copper from a mixed chalcopyrite/pyrite gold/copper ore body at a total treatment rate of 4.2 million tonne per year. The ore will be separated into two distinct process streams during the mining process in the open pits based on gold and copper grades; termed Low Grade Copper Feed(LGCF) containing less than 0.2% copper and High Grade Copper Feed (HGCF) containing more than 0.2% copper. The plant will produce gold dore (81% of the gold will be produced at the mine site) and a copper/gold concentrate averaging 17% copper and 20 g/t gold suitable for toll smelting." "High Grade Copper Feed Comprising approximately 15 million tonnes of ore, which is amenable to froth flotation, generating a saleable copper/gold concentrate, the tailings from the flotation circuit are leached with cyanide to recover gold. The treatment plant has been designed for a throughput of 1.2 million tonnes per year ore, with Projected life of mine recoveries as shown in the following table. Low Grade Copper Feed Comprising approximately 45 million tonnes of ore, with a low copper content making it highly amenable to conventional milling and cyanide leaching technology. The treatment plant has been designed for a throughput of 3.0 million tonnes per year with projected life of mine recoveries as shown in following table. 15.6.1 High Grade Copper Feed Flotation and Leach · HGCF required a Flotation-Leach circuit to achieve optimum Copper and Gold recoveries. · Mini plant testwork proved that the 17% copper concentrate grade at 92% and 87% copper · Optimum circuit performance can be obtained using 8 hours leach time and a cyanide addition rate of 0.75 kg/t. This takes into account both historical data and testwork carried out at Mintek. · Utilising a combined Flotation-Leach circuit, total gold recovery of 76% is attainable 15.6.2 Low Grade Copper Feed Leach · Optimum circuit performance can be achieved using 16 hours leach time and a staged cyanide addition rate of 0.75 kg/t, staged addition at a 75%, 25% cyanide addition with air sparging. This takes into account both historical test data and testwork performed at Mintek. · At optimum condition a gold recovery of 86.3% is achievable"