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Grande Portage Resources Ltd. (TSXV:GPG)(OTCQB:GPTRF)(FSE:GPB) (“Grande Portage” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce results from testwork of a sensor-based ore sorting system, utilizing a composite core sample from the New Amalga Mine Project located approximately 16 miles (25 km) northwest of the city of Juneau.
Summary of Results:
Unsorted Feed |
Sorter Reject |
Sorted Product |
|
Mass (kg) |
64.8 kg |
37.2 kg |
27.6 kg |
% Mass Distribution |
100% |
57% |
43% |
Gold Grade (g/t) |
5.9 g/t |
0.6 g/t |
12.9 g/t |
% Gold Distribution |
100% |
6% |
94% |
Ian Klassen, President and CEO comments: “We are extremely pleased with the results of the testwork with the Steinert ore sorting equipment, which demonstrated excellent ability to identify and reject the unmineralized particles within the sample of New Amalga material, resulting in a 120% increase in gold grade and a 57% reduction in mass with very minimal gold loss.”
Mr. Klassen continued: “These results are game changing for a host of reasons. Integrating ore sorting into the conceptual mine production plan significantly reduces the amount of mined rock requiring transportation and processing at a third-party facility, lowering per-ounce costs and also providing useful sorter-reject material for underground backfill, all without the use of chemical processing reagents. This further enhances the existing advantages of our proposed direct-ship mine configuration which utilizes offsite processing. As demonstrated by the test results, it may also create opportunities for inclusion of thinner veins into the mine plan – areas of the deposit which otherwise may not have been considered viable.”
Background:
As previously announced, the Company’s Conceptual Mining Plan envisions the future development of the New Amalga gold mine as a selective underground mining operation which would send ore off-site to be processed at a third-party facility, enabled by the project’s location near tidewater and less than 4 miles (6.5km) from existing paved highway (Fig. 4). This results in a dramatically reduced mine site footprint due to the avoidance of chemical processing and tailings storage facilities.
The purpose of ore sorting is to quickly separate particles of waste dilution rock from the mined material, without the use of chemical reagents. The goal is to significantly reduce the volume of material that would be transported off-site to a third-party processing facility.
Grande Portage assembled a drill core composite which included both ore and waste material to reflect the dilution from wall rock (waste) which is inherent with underground blasting of narrow ore veins. The core composite was subjected to a sensor-based ore sorting test process at the facilities of Steinert US Inc, a leading global manufacturer of ore-sorting equipment.
Technical Description of Ore Sorting Test Process:
Sensor-based ore sorting can utilize a variety of measurements to determine whether a particle is ore or waste, including color, electromagnetic induction, laser, and x-ray analysis to…