Canadian gold minnow Scottie Resources Corp says ore sorting technology might have a significant economic impact on its namesake gold project in British Columbia, where it is looking at producing a direct-shipping concentrate for Asian copper and precious metal smelters.
“The Asian copper smelter market is in a structural supply deficit allowing mines such as Scottie Resources to benefit from extremely low treatment charges for the foreseeable future,” the company said this week.
The past-producing Scottie gold mine, 32km north of Stewart in a gold area that hosts operating mines such as Premier and Brucejack, produced about 95,000 ounces of gold at an average grade of 16.2 grams per tonne from 1981 to 1985.
A phase one ore sorting study assessing X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and X-ray transmission (XRT) sensor-based sorting indicated both were suited to Scottie’s mineralogy.
“The ability to substantially increase grade while reducing the volume of material to be shipped has significant positive economic implications for Scottie as we continue to explore low-risk, low-capital pathways to production, namely direct-shipping ore and toll milling,” vice-president exploration, Dr Thomas Mumford, said. XRF ore sorting could take out the need for a gold processing plant and tailings facility, he said.
Scottie Resources pulled 210 rock samples from its Blueberry openpit, Blueberry underground and Scottie underground zones for XRF and XRT scanning followed by assaying of individual rock samples. ABH Engineering did the XRF scanning while the Saskatchewan Research Council used a TOMRA XRT tertiary sorter for its work. Scottie Resources is looking at initial openpit and underground mining to get DSO output to 80,000-100,000oz of gold a year.
“Both XRF and XRT have been shown to be able to very effectively sort high-grade gold-bearing rocks from waste rocks,” said ABH Engineering VP of mineral processing, Brent Hilcher.
Mineralogical work indicated strong associations between gold zones and pyrrhotite and pyrite sulphide minerals, making the deposits amenable to multiple types of sensors.
“The recovery curves from all three zones show significant metal recovery over the first 25-50% of mass pull,” the company said.
“Scottie considers these results to be particularly advantageous when considering production models where the metal recovery process occurs offsite [such as] toll milling [and] direct-shipping ore to smelters. In these models, shipping and treatment charges are done on a per tonne basis, thus greatly favouring low-volume, higher-grade DSO products. In addition, higher-grade products also command higher percentage payable terms.
“With the recovery curves as steep as they are, ore sorting offers a measure of control over the final grade of the DSO product that can be tuned to maximise the economic potential of the project. These ore sorting results are planned to be part of an upcoming PEA following the release of Scottie’s maiden mineral resource estimate.”
Scottie Resources aims to investigate three-way sorting, blending of DSO products and dense media separation treatment of the fines material in phase-two testing after it puts out an initial mineral resource estimate.
“Scottie plans to initiate phase two prior to the commencement of drilling in 2025 and release the results before year end,” the company said.
