gary123 wrote: "Metallurgy 40% through, they have been doing it for months and we only have drill hole samples, it's not like they are sampling tones of material. How long does it take there can't be much to do surely"
You have to laugh sometimes at the silly things you read on HotCopper. "there can't be that much to do surely?" ???
This comment really says everything about how little you know and one wonders why you so publicly show your ignorance, and so often. We ALL know Marmota is carrying out testing for heap leach recoveries which is a much more challenging (but vastly cheaper) recovery process than going through a mill.
* To simulate recoveries from a MILL, you conduct BOTTLE ROLL tests. They are quite quick by comparison. * To simulate recoveries from a HEAP LEACH, you use COLUMN LEACH tests. They can take a very long time.
I went to the MEU web site and typed in "COLUMN Leach" in the search box. You could do that too, before posting nonsense. It immediately brought up this ASX release:
Inside, there are diagrams showing the results of the previous basic column leach testing some years ago. There is a graph that I think I have seen in almost every MEU presentation showing the COLUMN LEACH recoveries as a function of time. Here is a screenshot of it:
Now look at the x-axis. It is in DAYS and goes to 120 days .... that is just for 1 test. The recoveries are clearly still increasing after 120 days, and they seem to have stopped it at about there. Now, if it takes 4 month to complete 1 test, never mind all the time prepare the samples, crush sizes, and do all the agglomeration testwork etc (which might take several months itself), how on earth do you expect the whole process with multiple tests, to take 1 month, to optimise the recoveries ????? Absolutely ridiculous some of the clueless rubbish that gets spouted here.
