Lessons from Troy

Some relevant facts:

• Troy purchased a second hand treatment plant from the Northern Territory and exported it to Brazil during 2002 for the Sertao' Mine (they also had customs hold-ups).
• The Mill was commissioned in March 2003 and commenced operations on April 1st 2003, and milled 5253 tonnes to April 30, @ 30.69 g/t with 96.3% recovery. In the first month!
• The processing plant included both a Knelson gravity concentrator and a CIL plant.
• During the last year of the mine operation, lower grade ore from three locations (Antena Cluster) was the catalyst for Troy to double the capacity of the plant (140,000 tpa to 240,000 tpa) and with higher sulphide content caused them to install a pre-leach tank and oxygen accelerator.
• Even with the higher sulphide ores, recovery was around 88%.
• Until Feb 2007, troy were actively drilling in close proximity to the Sertao' open pit in addition to multiple (up to 70) targets in the Faina greenstone belt.
• Also during Feb 2007, the decision was made to relocate the plant to the Andorinhas project, and as a result, drilling ceased.
• One target approx 30klm to the north of Cascaval had an intercept of 44m @ 4.7g/t (from 2m), including 3m @ 16.72 g/t (38m) in addition to some supporting results within 100m.
• Another target approximately to the south, returned a result of 2m @ 211.92 g/t.  This was reported 31/01/07 and a program of infill RC drilling was planned for the next quarter.   This obviously did not occur as the decision to cease exploration was made shortly after
• I think it is fair to say that Troy were probably disappointed that they didn't find higher mineralisation elsewhere in the Greenstone belt earlier, but they certainly hadn't given up and were "excited" about some prospects.
• They also used RAB drilling to increase meterage rate for initial shallow exploration (lower drilling costs).
• Given that at this time, gold was trading at around $650 USD / Oz, it seems very likely to me that sufficient ore from these targets can be located somewhere to supply our current plant profitably.   

Perhaps there is promise in this as a back-up strategy while we our UG sorted.  Constructive comments welcome.

SJB   

It's Sertao' not Serato