Thoughts on a recent site visit to Novo Resources
Erik Wetterling just returned from a site visit to the Novo Resource properties in Australia. He shares his takeaways from the time spend on site and with management. We also discuss the recent news regarding the improvements of the mechanical sorting technology at Egina.
As mentioned in the interview if you have any questions for Quinton please email me at Fleck@kereport.com. No time is set up yet but I will be sure to keep all the questions handy for our next interview.
Are there any particular difficulties, or issues, holding up the obtaining of native agreements at Egina?
And can progress on the native agreements continue during the hot summer months, if necessary?
While no water may be needed at Egina for ore sorting purposes, is there a need for water to be used during the land reclamation process? And if so, is that a problem?
DB: There will be no water necessary for any purpose at Egina. Testing is happening right now to determine just how deep the roots go of the vegetation. NVO plans on connecting a steel plate to a front end loader and literally just lifting the top 6-8 inches or so including the roots. scooping it up and setting it aside.
The continuous miner will follow up, do the mining, set the tailing (less the gold) right back in the same trench they just mined. Then the front end loader just puts the top soil and plants right back where they were.
No one in Australia would put up with anyone strip mining hundreds of square km of land. Novo will restore the ground to exactly what it was before mining.
Could the advances in ore sorting talked about for Egina be possibly used at Beaton’s Creek, so that besides some crushing capacity, Novo may not need access to an expensive traditional mill there?