Alcoyne set for September commissioning
THE BOURSE WHISPERER: Alcyone Resources remains on track to ramp-up silver production at its wholly-owned Texas silver & polymetallic project in south-east Queensland.
The company said it had made excellent progress in the first four weeks of wet commissioning of the upgraded Twin Hills processing facility.
Wet commissioning of the upgraded crushing circuit and heap leach processing facility commenced early August and the plant is already operating at a throughput rate of 140 tonnes per hour, which is not far off its nameplate capacity of 150 tonnes per hour .
This equates to an annualised throughput rate of one million tonnes per annum.
“The plant is performing beyond our expectations for this stage of commissioning and, when coupled with the production of over 210,000 ounces of silver to date, represents another key milestone towards achieving full-scale commercial silver production at the Texas Project,” Alcoyne Resources managing director Andrew King said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.
“There couldn’t be a better time to be starting a silver mine with silver prices continuing to strengthen, providing us with an exceptional cash operating margin.
“With our life-of-mine unit cash operating costs forecast at $15 per ounce, this equates to a cash operating margin at the current spot price of around $26 per ounce – a very healthy proposition for a company entering a production ramp-up phase.
“We are looking forward to the next milestones, which include the start of mining and ramp-up to full commercial production at an annualised production rate of 1.5 million to 2 million ounces per annum by the end of this year.”
Overall silver recovery from the circuit is currently achieving recoveries from solution of more than 96 per cent, compared with the company’s targeted level, based on previous test work, of 95 per cent.
The company has produced over 210,000 ounces of bullion since it commenced trial processing in April and it is confident it can reach its original 250,000 ounce production target.
The early production has enabled Alcoyne to take advantage of strong silver prices and generate early cash flow.
The company has over 200,000 tonnes of medium to low grade ore on the Run-of-Mine stockpile that is being used for the initial wet commissioning of the plant, with a further 180,000 tonnes of higher grade ore already exposed within the open cut ready for extraction.
Because of the progress it has achieved so far with the plant commissioning, Alcyone has decided to bring forward the commencement of mining in the Twin Hills open pit to late September.
This will provide a regular ore feed to the plant and enable the company to ramp up production to the targeted annualised rate of 1.5 million to 2 million ounces per annum by the end of the year.