Hi Saltiga62, thanks for the response. I had looked in the ABM...

Hi Saltiga62, thanks for the response.

I had looked in the ABM thread previously, but the last reference I could find to Coyote was in April, before the lease expired.

The below snippet was taken from ABM's annual report, but it doesnt really say why. The majority of the snippet seems quite positive overall, but then they just end it by saying that it was returned to Tanami.

So I was just wondering if I was missing something, or if there was more to it.

Cheers



MINING OPERATIONS

The Old Pirate Gold Deposit is part of ABM’s Twin Bonanza Gold Project and consists of a series of gold-bearing quartz veins with an overall strike-length of approximately 1.8 kilometres. The development of four open pits, Western Limb, Old Pirate Central, Old Pirate South and Golden Hind, commenced at Old Pirate in late 2014/15. These four pits were designed to access approximately 150,000 tonnes of ore that would be mined and processed over a one year period. Ore from Old Pirate was trucked 77 kilometres to the Coyote plant in Western Australia for processing. The facilities at Coyote were leased by ABM from Tanami Gold NL. Commissioning of the plant started towards the end of 2014/15 and was completed
in mid-July 2016, triggering the commencement of the initial 12 month lease of the plant. Coyote has capacity to treat 240,000 tonnes of ore per annum and was therefore initially operated on a two weeks on/one week off basis to match the planned output of the mine.

Mine production and plant throughput rapidly ramped-up to targeted levels and metallurgical recovery consistently exceeded expectations, however it became evident that plant reconciled head grade was falling short of forecast. A thorough review of the operation was carried out in November 2015. The investigation examined grade control methods, mining practises, gold entrapment within the plant and security. It was determined that the mine was yielding only 50% of forecast gold production, primarily as a result of the in-situ resource grade being substantially less than had been estimated.

In response to the finding on resource grade, the mine design was re-optimised in December 2015 leading to a reduction in design depth for the Old Pirate South and Golden Hind pits. However it was determined that mine ore production rates could be maintained above the initial target, which enabled continuous ore processing to be implemented from January 2016 leading to greater efficiency and lower unit costs.

Mining of the four pits was completed in March 2016, with the last ore processed the following month. In total, 155,357 tonnes of ore grading 5.9g/t were mined and processed, together with 1,736 tonnes of remnant stockpiles from the earlier trial mining program with an estimated grade of 4.0g/t. Plant recovery averaged 98.9% over the life of mine, leading to the production and sale of 29,376 ounces of gold.

At the completion of mining, rehabilitation of the mine and surrounding areas was largely completed, leaving the site in a stable condition. The Coyote plant was placed on care and maintenance and returned to Tanami Gold following the expiry of the lease post year end.