Mar 11 2015
Searchlight Minerals Corp. ("Searchlight" or the "Company") today provided an update on its Clarkdale Slag Project as it continues its autoclave testing and optimization of gold recovery and moves towards commercial operation and project feasibility.
Current Work Program
The Company is currently working on all the following key steps in an effort to move expeditiously towards commercial operation:
1. Pre-treatment: Optimization of the thermal pre-treatment of the slag prior to autoclaving is well underway resulting in lowering the required operating parameters and thereby lowering the expected unit operation cost while still producing a high quality iron product. The Company believes it has optimized the flux formulation for the thermal pre-treatment, resulting in reducing the flux required by approximately 50%. This has the net effect of doubling the capacity of the autoclave and cutting the per-ton melting cost significantly. The Company has recently completed multiple thermal pretreatment tests using the new flux chemistry. These tests have consistently yielded .47 ounces per ton gold (or greater) contained in the glass with less than 2% of the gold reporting to the iron product. The iron product produced has been consistently greater than 90% pure iron.
As a potentially lower cost alternative to the thermal pretreatment used thus far, the Company has also contacted a major international iron and steel producer regarding use of their patented commercial technology used in direct reduction of iron. The producer has agreed to perform a series of bench tests with its technology, to determine such technology's applicability. The Company is currently reviewing the producer's proposal and these tests are expected to begin within the next few weeks.
2. Optimization Testing: The Company has begun testing of the bench and pilot scale autoclave to determine optimum operating conditions with regard to best ratio of solids to liquid in the autoclave and ideal contact time. Once this testing is completed, the results will be used for the design of the autoclave. The Company has also ordered certain required components to switch from using chlorine reagents to chlorine gas. The Company believes that this will not only significantly lower supply costs on the commercial unit but will eliminate the potential problems of salt formation in the autoclave which plugged the autoclave discharge in one of the four last pilot scale autoclave runs. The Company anticipates that this will also simplify and increase recovery of gold from the Pregnant Leach Solution (PLS).
3. Vendor Estimates: The Company is obtaining cost estimates from various commercial vendors on all of the major equipment components (thermal pre-treatment, HPGR, tower mill, autoclave, etc.) in an effort to tighten projections for its various business plan scenarios moving forward.
4. Personnel: The Company is starting to hire additional personnel skilled in crushing, site design and autoclave design and operation. Although final site design and construction will be bid to a qualified and experienced engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) contractor, the Company's additional personnel are necessary to complete the preliminary design and equipment specifications to provide to prospective construction contractors as part of the bid package as well as oversee the chosen EPCM's work going forward.
Martin Oring, CEO of Searchlight Minerals Corp., noted, "I am pleased that we are making progress on our autoclave testing and optimization of gold recovery as we move towards project feasibility and commercial operation." Mr. Oring continued, "In the coming months, the Board of Directors and I will be analyzing the progress and recommendations from our technical team, as well as our capital requirements, in order to move as efficiently and expeditiously towards finalizing the projects feasibility. In addition, I anticipate issuing periodic status reports on the Company's progress."