LONDON (Alliance News) - Berkeley Energy Ltd Tuesday said metallurgical testwork on the Zona 7 deposit at the Salamanca project in Spain has confirmed the deposit is suitable to be treated by a low-cost heap leaching method.
Heap leaching is an industrial mining process to extract metals and compounds from ore via a series of chemical reactions that absorb specific minerals and then re-separates them after their division from other earth materials.
The miner said tests on representative samples have indicated that it can recover over 85% of the metals with low acid consumption and at a coarse crush size. The ore is easy to crush and has a low abrasion index and also exhibits good geotechnical properties, suitable for high lifts on the heap leach pads, it said.
The deposit is located 10 kilometres away from where the company will build the processing plant for the project, which will treat the ore from Zona 7.
"Recently announced infill drill results have confirmed the broad thickness and high grade of the shallow deposit. The final infill drill results and an upgraded Mineral Resource Estimate are due to be reported in September," it said in a statement.
The Zona 7 deposit currently has an inferred mineral resource of 23.2 million tonnes of ore at an average of 589 parts per million of triuranium octoxide to produce a total of 30.1 million pounds of triuranium octoxide.
"These highly impressive metallurgical testwork results are important as they enhance the economic significance of the Zona 7 deposit and support the board's decision to rapidly incorporate the deposit into the overall development plans of the Salamanca project," said Berkeley Energy.
Berkeley Energy shares were down 0.3% to 18.95 pence per share on Tuesday morning.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
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Berkeley Eng (BKY)