GT Gold (GTT.V) released the results of the initial metallurgical test program on two samples taken from its Saddle copper-gold porphyry project in British Columbia. The samples contained a high-grade and low-grade mass with each of both samples consisting of three different zones.
The high grade sample had an average grade of 0.5% copper, 0.92 g/t gold and 1.56 g/t silver and resulted in a recovery rate of 88% of the copper and 67% for gold resulting in a copper concentrate grading 24.5% copper and 32.2 g/t gold. The larger composite sample of the lower grade material had an average grade of 0.3% copper, 0.45 g/t gold and 2.27 g/t silver and resulted in a recovery rate of 75% for the copper and 57% for the gold content. The copper concentrate had a grade of 22% copper and 23.3 g/t gold.
A good result on all fronts for a first pass as we should realistically assume these results will improve over time as GT Gold gets an increasingly better understanding of the met work. Ideally, we would like to see the gold recoveries (for both the high-grade and low-grade samples) to increase while the 75% copper recovery for the lower grade area could ideally be boosted as well.
But again, this was just the first pass and will help GT Gold to put a resource model together in Q2 and perhaps a second set of metallurgical test results will be ready and available to be incorporated in the PEA which should be ready by the end of this year.
Disclosure: The author has a small long position in GT Gold now.
