Alba Mineral Resources PLC has announced the production of high-grade gold from samples of fines material taken from the trenching program at the historic Waste Tip at the Clogau-St David's Gold Mine in North Wales. The company has excavated nearly 33 tonnes of <20mm material from the Waste Tip, which will undergo primary processing at the onsite Gravity Processing Plant and then be refined at an offsite gold refinery. The results from the refining process have shown significantly higher grades of gold production than previous laboratory assays had indicated, enhancing the economic viability of mining the Waste Tip.
The composite samples from trenches 1, 3, and 4 returned a total of 5.1 grams of gold, with trench 2 indicating no gold content, likely consisting of country rock from the original off-reef development. The refining process has revealed that the laboratory assays had underrepresented the gold content of the Waste Tip, with the latest round of trenching returning results more than 20 times higher than in 2022. This significantly assists in determining the economic viability of mining the tip as a whole for its gold content.
George Frangeskides, Executive Chairman, expressed satisfaction with the refinery gold production, stating that it has vindicated their decision to undertake another round of trenching over the Waste Tip and their instinct that the previous laboratory results had underrepresented the gold content of the tip. The company plans to send the gold concentrates produced for refining in the same way after completing the processing of this batch of fines from the Waste Tip within their onsite processing plant.
This announcement contains forward-looking statements and inside information for the purposes of the UK Market Abuse Regulation. The Directors of the Company are responsible for the release of this announcement.