Saturn Metals has announced a breakthrough in gold recoveries at its Apollo Hill gold project in Western Australia, following the completion of additional metallurgical testwork.
Recoveries were consistent across the full grade spectrum of 0.18 to 0.84 grams per tonne of gold, confirming the project’s suitability for low-cost, large-scale processing.
Saturn Metals managing director Ian Bamborough said the strong recoveries from materials typically mined early in an open pit schedule would have a positive effect on project economics.
“The metallurgy of Apollo Hill is a clear competitive advantage,” he said. “This positive new data will be used as the company progresses its studies towards production.”
The work focused on column leach testing of near-surface oxide and transitional material from the recently upgraded 2.03-million-ounce Mozi mineral resource.
Designed to assess the potential for bulk tonnage gold mining using heap leach methods, the testing returned standout results that exceeded expectations and key assumptions used in previous studies.
The company achieved an average gold recovery rate of 86 per cent over a 95-day period, aligning strongly with global heap leach performance standards.
With 75 per cent of the gold recovered within the first 30 days, it indicates favourable leach kinetics and rapid recovery potential.
These results surpass the 75 per cent recovery rate used in Saturn’s preliminary economic assessment and could lead to more favourable outcomes in the ongoing pre-feasibility study.
The testwork also demonstrated minimal reagent consumption, with just 0.5kg of cyanide per tonne and 4.3kg of cement added.
Percolation tests, which assess the effectiveness of fluid flow through the heap, delivered results six times higher than the minimum threshold.
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