Ann: A1 Enters Production and Pours First Gold , page-52

re: Ann: A1 Enters Production and Pours First... No gold room yet?

The final stages of a cyanide plant recover gold as a metal. Often looks like sludge but its still gold) This should happen in a gold room along with other high value, high security operations.

The gold room would normally be a steel shed with a welded security frame inside. Back to base cctv should cover all of the interior and there should be no hidden corners. There should be unambiguous protocols as to who has authority to enter. Concentrates for example should be exchanged at the door.

The room itself should be divided into a dry side and a wet side. Entry should be via the wet side. Electrowinning cells or Merrill Crowe equipment should be located on the wet side along with concentrating tables for the gravity circuit (Some combination of Wilfley and or wave tables).

The dry side will have a furnace and equipment for pouring gold such as a dry sand tray and a cascade of steel or graphite moulds. The last one I was in had the sand try and furnace as an integrated unit. As the furnace tilted to discharge its contents, the sand tray moved to maintain correct orientation.

A few lockers for storing protective clothing for the furnace operators and a couple of safes, electronic balances for weighing out intermediate and final product, storage for furnace flux, spare crucibles etc and you have a gold room.

I'm guessing if the company doesn't have a gold room, they are storing high value concentrates etc in shipping containers or suchlike. Where they are currently terminating the CIP process is a good question. Presumably at some time they will install electrowinning cells but these should be located in the gold room. My best guess is they have a partially completed gold room but no operational furnace.

All up costs for a gold room should be in the order of $200k