US-based Mexus Gold is set to start work on the area that will become the company’s open-pit heap leach mine on the Julio/Santa Elena site in Mexico, after receiving all environmental and mining permits.
Mexus cleared and levelled an area 300m by 100m for the pad and proposes to open-pit the shear zone where the Julio high-grade quartz vein faulted to the west.
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The shear zone and the Julio quartz vein are planned to be mined simultaneously.
Shear zone material will be crushed to ¾in minus and later placed on the leach pad, while the Julio high-grade will go straight to Mexus’s crusher ball mill gravity recovery plant.
Mexus will place tailings from the gravity recovery plant on the heap.
The company said it is also working with a blasting contractor, which has already worked on-site and evaluated the area.
As part of track drilling, set to begin soon, 200 to 250 drill holes ranging from 3m to 6m deep are being created. Each will be sampled to control the grades being processed.
The company will sell the non-essential placer plant to obtain necessary funding for the materials, dirt work, blasting, and labour.
Mexus Gold CEO Paul Thompson said: "Our director of operations Cesar Lemas presented a budget to get an initial heap leach pad completed.
"It became clear that if we could sell some of our equipment, we would be able to afford the heap leach/ball mill plan as laid out by Lemas."
