Re: Urgent message for Mr Pinto

Perhaps the mine site visitors can pass this on!

With the focus on costs you will be pleased to know that simply by reading this message you can save the Company tens of thousands of dollars!

"after 2 years of assay results and trial and error we want to compare recoveries from the Cascavel circuit to recoveries from a CIL circuit. In hindsight its a test that probably should have been carried out two years ago. “

So now you are sending 10 tonnes of ore to a nearby third party mill & CIL plant.

Hold on Mr Pinto, you already have the answer!  You announced on June 2017   "Gold extractions were high when utilising cyanide (95% - 99%)." These were third party tests that validate previous third party tests (not just an unsubstantiated opinion) . Heres the link Mr Pinto https://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20170601/pdf/43jnhy73r8mfds.pdf

Also, similar test work was actually initially carried out 6 years ago! The announcement you refer to in your qtly  states : “The aim of the initial metallurgical test work was to ascertain the responsiveness of the ore to extraction by gravity, leaching and flotation.” 27 Nov 2012. So go and have a read of the testwork that your company did back then.

All the test work (and simple common sense) shows that you get better recoveries with cyanide! Why waste more of shareholders money demonstrating a basic principle of metallurgy ????? The better question is : "whats the incremental value of investing additional money to win a small additional amount of gold?" Why would you go and spend an additional $xxm at this point on a cyanide circuit to get a small extra % of the gold? Whats that you say? Its not a small incremental extra amount? Well wheres your test work? Cause every piece of third party data your company has previously shown would disagree with you (most recently : 1 June 2017). Shareholders of ASX listed companies want data please mr pinto - not unsubstantiated opinions that contradict hard data.

There you go, money saved. Cyanide treatment gives better recoveries than gravity. You’re welcome.


But lets talk more about this focus you have on sulphides, fine gold and CIL. You have presented zero evidence in the form of third party met tests, grain size distribution analysis or mineralogical characterisation (haven’t even presented your in house data for that matter) that would give the market any cause to question 6 years of information presented by two different management teams. If fine gold and sulphides are the problem then give us the data that your statements are based on or stop your misinformation.

While we are here, Im afraid that some of your other assertions in your quarterly report need some backing up with facts while others are downright wrong and an attempt to divert attention and pass the buck.

Your recent qtly refers to an announcement from 2012. In that 2012 announcement your company says  that  “The level of alteration and sulphides in the system appears to be increasing at depth” and describes the gold at Cascavel as being located in a  “sulphide rich zone”. So when you say that “ previous management had always maintained that Cascavel ore is oxide ore and would need only gravity”,  well that appears to be completely false. I challenge you to find a single reference to oxide ore still existing at Cascavel. According to presentations made by your Company, there hasn’t been oxide ore at Cascavel since the Portuguese mined it 300 years ago!!!! All the photos, test work and descriptions of the Cascavel ore presented over the last six years by your Company are references to sulphide ore. Not a single reference to oxide ore. Not one. I even took the liberty of contacting some of the geologists that have been to site and some that worked on site over the years to check this fact and I am happy to let you know that your company has been correctly reporting the characterisation of ore up until now. As all the met reports, data and mineralogical characterisations show, your ore is sulphide ore with predominately free gold Mr Pinto and your company has never said otherwise. Prove me wrong.

In 2012 the company stated that the met samples first reported were " mineralogically consistent with the much wider intersections of the mineralised zones evidenced in drilling to date.” i.e. the mineralisation in drill holes was the same as the mineralisation in the workings, that is,  free gold in a sulphide rich zone. So was this wrong? Is there in fact new evidence that there is “an amount of gold bearing sulphides” (as you state in your qtly) in the system as opposed to free-gold in a sulphide rich zone? The difference is significant, and although you very casually make this statement, the ramifications are significant. Don’t get me wrong, every gold system has a range of mineralogy, so no doubt there is ‘an amount’ of gold bearing sulphides and there is ‘an amount’ of fine gold - but all your company’s previous third party test work says that this is a very small amount (between 5 and 15% in any case according to data presented by your company). Is all the previous third party test work, ore characterisation, mineralogy and data wrong? Please present your evidence.

The bottom line:

you present no evidence whatsoever to contradict years of third party reports and data. Surely this is nothing more than an attempt to divert attention away from the real issue which is the company’s continuing inability to mine high grade ore from the mine.

Your focus on the plant, fine gold and sulphides is a red herring. It is unproven, unsupported, unlikely and contrary to all evidence previously presented to the market. More importantly, it is nothing more than a distraction and delaying tactic.

You are choosing to blame the continuing inability to mine high grade ore on the plant while hoping that poor shareholders don’t have the metallurgical knowledge to see through this thin veneer of excuses that do not stand up to any technical scrutiny whatsoever.  This charade can only last so long. Eventually the music will stop and when it does, the data won’t lie.