AGM Statement
Serabi Gold on track for 2024 production guidance; Coringa ramp-up accelerating with new PEA and ore sorter arriving.
- Coringa ore sorter on site
- Proposed GU trial mining licence capacity increase 100,000 tonne per annum transported ore
- Equivalent extracted ore approximately 200,000 tonnes per annum
- New PEA timing Q3 2024
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Serabi Gold plc (AIM:SRB, TSX:SBI), the Brazilian-focused gold mining and development company, advises that at 2:00 pm today (UK time), it will be holding its Annual General Meeting.
The following is the text of the statement that will be made by Mr. Mike Hodgson, the Chief Executive of the Company.
Highlights of the statement are:
The Company remains on target to achieve production guidance for 2024.
Activity accelerated at Coringa as production ramp up continues.
New Preliminary Economic Assessment (“PEA”) of Coringa being produced, reflecting the current operating plan and lower upfront capital costs for the project.
The ore sorter for Coringa is now on site and the civil works for this and the crushing plant are advancing well.
Two surface exploration rigs operating with focus on the headframe exploration around the current Palito deposit and proving the potential of the Sao Domingos prospect
Text of statement
“Good afternoon and thank you for attending our Annual General Meeting.
“I am pleased to report that production for the year to date continues to be encouraging and we remain on target to achieve production guidance for 2024.
“The Coringa Gold Operation continues to perform very well. Following the renewal of the GU underground trial mining licence for a further three year period in January of this year, we have accelerated activity at the mine, with an increased rate of mine development and additional mine crews to execute the mine development. This is all with the objective of ramping up Coringa to commercial production, as we continue to execute on our organic growth plans.
“At the same time, we are undertaking an underground drilling programme targeting the depth extension of the known mineralisation at Coringa, which is expected to increase the mineral resource and the mine life. The results of this drill programme are being collated and shared with the independent geological consultancy NCL, who are preparing a new NI 43-101 Technical Report. We anticipate this report will be issued during Q3, and will be shortly followed by a new Preliminary Economic Assessment (“PEA”) of Coringa. This PEA will document the revised business plan we have for Coringa, where only crushing and ore sorting will be undertaken at site, and a ‘pre-concentrated ore’ will be trucked from Coringa to Palito for processing. The new PEA will allow us to provide investors with an independent view of the economic benefits of this revised business plan and the significantly lower up front capital investment.
“At Palito, the operation has continued according to plan, but we have had to process lower grades than forecast as we have been forced to ‘bulk mine’ a geologically complex area, and this has brought greater dilution than planned. But with new areas being developed, we anticipate grades improving as we return to exclusively selective mining.
“The ore sorter for Coringa is now on site and the civil works for this and the crushing plant are advancing well. Our plan remains to have the ore sorter operational for the fourth quarter but we expect that we can complete the crushing plant earlier, crush some of the lower grade ore, and establish a stockpile ready to feed the ore sorter as soon as it is ready for operation. The ore sorter itself is fully containerised and identical to the equipment at Palito. It has already been operationally tested and initially calibrated at the factory. Therefore, we anticipate a low-risk commissioning period.
“Whilst we are still working through the process of receiving the Installation Licence, we are also pursuing a doubling of the capacity of the current GU trial mining licence in parallel. Based on the test results, an increased limit of 100,000 tonne per annum of transported ore could be equivalent to approximately 200,000 tonnes of ore extracted from the mine, which is more than adequate to allow us to realise our 2025 production plans from a mining license perspective.
“The indigenous impact study (“the ECI”) was completed and a copy protocoled with FUNAI, the government agency for the indigenous communities. We are waiting on their feedback, and in time, their approval of the study, including the mitigation and community plans that we have proposed to adopt. As we expected, the ECI concluded that the project is expected to have only minimal impacts on the indigenous communities whose villages are located further to the east of the BR163 highway than the project itself. As a result, traffic to and from the mine does not need to pass through or even come close to these communities.
“With the rainy season now over, we are stepping up our exploration activity with two surface rigs now operating at Palito and the surrounding area. Our key focus for a 2024 drilling campaign is on the headframe exploration around the current Palito deposit and doing more work to prove up the potential of the Sao Domingos prospect on the south western part of our exploration tenements.
“I remain very optimistic for the rest of 2024 and beyond. Coringa is shaping up to be an excellent, low risk project, and I think that there is significant potential for further resource growth along the eight kilometre garimpo trend as well as discovering additional parallel vein structures to add considerable mine life at Coringa. As we have seen at Palito, where there is similar growth potential, I anticipate this will be a long life asset and with systematic exploration, we will continue to be able to replenish and grow the resource base for both projects, Both Palito and Coringa, in my opinion, have the potential to host over one million ounce gold deposits and over the next couple of years, I hope we can achieve this.”
| “Ag” | means silver. |
| “albite” | is a plagioclase feldspar mineral |
| “ANM” | means the Agencia Nacional de Mineral. |
| “Au” | means gold. |
| “CIM” | means the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum. |
| “CIP” or “Carbon in Pulp” | means a process used in gold extraction by addition of cyanide. |
| “chalcopyrite” | is a sulphide of copper and iron. |
| “Cu” | means copper. |
| “epidote” | is a calcium aluminium iron sorosilicate mineral |
| “garimpo” | is a local artisanal mining operation |
| “garimpeiro” | is a local artisanal miner. |
| “geochemical” | refers to geological information using measurements derived from chemical analysis. |
| “gossan” | is an iron-bearing weathered product that overlies a sulphide deposit. |
| “g/t” | means grams per tonne. |
| “granodiorite” | is an igneous intrusive rock like granite. |
| “hectare” or a “ha” | is a unit of measurement equal to 10,000 square metres. |
| “hematite” | is a common iron oxide compound |
| “igneous” | is a rock that has solidified from molten material or magma. |
| “intrusive” | is a body of rock that invades older rocks. |
| “mineralisation” | the concentration of metals and their chemical compounds within a body of rock. |
| “mineralised” | refers to rock which contains minerals e.g. iron, copper, gold. |
| “Mo-Bi-As-Te-W-Sn” | Molybdenum-Bismuth-Arsenic-Tellurium-Tungsten-Tin |
| “monzodiorite” | Is an intrusive rock formed by slow cooling of underground magma. |
| “mt” | means million tonnes. |
| “porphry” | any of various granites or igneous rocks with coarse grained crystals |
| “ppm” | means parts per million. |
| “proterozoic” | means the geological eon (period) 2.5 billion years ago to 541 million years ago |
| “pyrite” | an iron sulphide mineral |
| “saprolite” | is a weathered or decomposed clay-rich rock. |
| “sulphide” | refers to minerals consisting of a chemical combination of sulphur with a metal. |
| “tpd” | means tonnes per day. |
Assay Results
Assay results reported within this release include those provided by the Company's own on-site laboratory facilities at Palito and have not yet been independently verified. Serabi closely monitors the performance of its own facility against results from independent laboratory analysis for quality control purpose. As a matter of normal practice, the Company sends duplicate samples derived from a variety of the Company's activities to accredited laboratory facilities for independent verification. Since mid-2019, over 10,000 exploration drill core samples have been assayed at both the Palito laboratory and certified external laboratory, in most cases the ALS laboratory in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. When comparing significant assays with grades exceeding 1 g/t gold, comparison between Palito versus external results record an average over-estimation by the Palito laboratory of 6.7% over this period. Based on the results of this work, the Company's management are satisfied that the Company's own facility shows sufficiently good correlation with independent laboratory facilities for exploration drill samples. The Company would expect that in the preparation of any future independent Reserve/Resource statement undertaken in compliance with a recognized standard, the independent authors of such a statement would not use Palito assay results without sufficient duplicates from an appropriately certificated laboratory.
Notice
Cleaned text: letterheads, contacts and legal notices removed. View the original announcement ↗ · Company filings. Not investment advice.