Heap Leaching

I recently met with a professional colleague of mine who has worked on a number of gold projects around the world including North America with experience with heap leaching. I had a few unanswered questions which I sent to Louie / Chris. Below is the reply email I got back from Louie / Chris.
Louie has given me his permission to share their response on HC.

Q: Who is leading the next phase test-work for heap leaching? Various professionals in the industry have spoken highly of Kappes, Cassiday and Associates who have a remarkable reputation in that region. From previous announcements, I believe ALS completed the initial testing.
A: Bureau Veritas is running all metallurgical test works, Forte Dynamics is running our heap leach and pit optimisation and Dr. Sanaz Zadeh (PHD in heap leaching and crush size effects) of ABH Engineering will oversee. This in addition to Chris and Colin 50 + them years onsite experience between them and another fellow who was Robert Friendlands heap/valley leach guy just came off continental gold after its takeover from Zijin Mining.

Q: Heap leaching can be severely affected by snow and in Alaska it snows for more than 6 months of the year making it non effective. Is there a heating system that may be used to heap leach for longer periods of the year? Or what is the plan to maximise months of leaching? (Sorry I may have missed this in a previous announcement).
A: Actually cold climate leach technology is proven and works quite well (see Fort Knox, Dublin Gulch, etc.) the leaching process can be an exothermic reaction (process produce heat) to some degree depending on leach solution. Time will tell as we get results from current met test work how exothermic our optimized solutions will be. We don't expect freeze to be an issue, nevertheless, the window of a possible intermittent freeze is over the harshest months of winter 6-8 weeks. This potential production decrease is will be made up during the spring thaw when the snow melts and naturally flushes out the leach pad leading to increased recovery period. Also, we are looking to have a concurrent high-grade CIL/CIP circuit continuing with consistent gold recovery operations year round no issue.

Q: This may be jumping the gun, but one of the most critical items for leaching is the design or the pad and it’s porosity and permeability. I know that clay can cause blinding and therefore block the pathway for leachant to be extracted. It also expands when it freezes. Are there any measures which have been thought of to mitigate these risks. Is there any clay present in the current ore body?
A: Clay is not an issue. Not present in any measurable amount. Hard competent rock from surface. We expect a good amount of Run of Mine material (no crushing) and/or very coarse crush for some leach pad ore material. Optimal crush size and/or ROM all being studied in current met testwork. All to be considered in upcoming PEA/scoping study.

I am very happy with the above responses from Louie / Chris, again this demonstrates what a fantastic long term stock this is going to turn out to be. Hold onto your shares tight and don't sell out cheaply else you may live to regret it! Still not too late for those looking to buy in or top up at these prices as there are still plenty of bags to be made from here!!!