Sumatra Copper & Gold to complete stage 2 Pre-feasibility Study
Tuesday, July 31 2012 - 05:47 AM WIB
Australian-listed miner Sumatra Copper & Gold plc continued to fast track its wholly-owned Tembang gold and silver project in South Sumatra, scheduling to release the Stage 1 Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) in August 2012 after external auditing and board review and targeting to complete Stage 2 Pre-feasibility Study (PFS) in September quarter.
This is in correlation with Sumatra's plan to mine Tembang over two-stages, with Stage 1 being a low-risk, small scale operation to commence production at Belinau and Asmar deposits, and Stage 2 comprises of the remaining four Tembang deposits, namely Berenai, Buluh, Aidit and Bujang which will comprise a larger mine and throughput.
"Belinau is a high-grade vein system with strong exploration upside and Asmar has a perfect oxide blend for Belinau with low strip ratio. The remaining four Tembang deposits are currently undergoing Pre-feasibility Study," the company said in their half year report submitted to the ASX.
Geotechnical drilling at the Belinau open pit is expected to be completed in the coming days, while detailed metallurgical studies have been finalised with metallurgical drilling at Asmar completed, with RDD 12196 returning 40.0 metres @ 3.0 g/t Au and 8.8 g/t Ag from 5.0 metres.
The company stated that based on the Stage 1 work completed to date, the Stage 2 PFS flow sheet indicates a low capital cost upgrade to the communication circuit to achieve a targeted throughput of 900,000 tpa.
Sumatra also stated it has received expressions of interest from at least 12 financial institutions for debt and equity funding of the Tembang project. Indications are that the re-optimised Tembang development plan has significantly reduced the pre-development capital.
Editing by Er Audy Zandri