Tocvan Ventures (TOC.C) announced a comprehensive update on its metallurgical test work earlier this month. The leaching process has now been completed and the team on the ground has started to prep the leach pad for final sampling. All data has now been sent to two certified labs and the company is waiting to hear back from the labs to see what the calculated head grade and recovery of gold and silver was.
The company also completed a new agitated cyanide bottle roll test on material collected from the fine fraction of screened material not included in the heap leach pile (which had an average grade of 2.1 g/t gold and 14.8 g/t silver) in combination with additional bulk sample material. The initial results of that bottle roll test are encouraging with a recovery rate of 81% for the gold and 99% for the silver after a 72 hour retention time.
These results are just the ‘amuse-bouche’ for a more comprehensive update as the company expects to be able to publish the final results in the next few weeks. According to CEO Sutherland, the data the company has received so far have been encouraging and suggest that a heap leach recovery scenario at Pilar will at least meet or even exceed the recovery rates at the nearby open pit gold mines. Meanwhile, the positive results from the agitated leach tests are encouraging as well so there definitely appears to be a potential to further tweak and refine the plans to optimize the gold and silver recovery rates.
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