US gold mining and exploration company Borealis has completed its first gold pour of the year at its on-site adsorption, desorption and recovery (ADR) facility in Nevada. 

According to a statement from the company, the first pour resulted in doré bars (a semi-pure alloy of gold and silver) weighing 651ozt containing 21.968% gold and 20.169% silver, as determined by an independent assay of a pin sample.  

This produced approximately 143ozt of gold and 131ozt of silver. 

According to Borealis, this production was executed by pressure stripping 2.5 of the company’s ten carbon columns, which were loaded from residual leaching with a highly dilute cyanide solution. 

Borealis intends to strip the remaining 7.5 carbon columns and then introduce fresh cyanide to a section of the leach pad that has previously not been leached. The company expects this to result in a higher gold percentage doré compared with the material generated through residual leaching. 

The company also recently submitted several super sacks of spent carbon fines to mining service provider Just Refiners in Reno, Nevada, which contained 76.504ozt of gold and 305.012ozt of silver. 

Borealis CEO Kelly Malcolm, said: "We are in the process of seeking contractors to crush our 330,000 ton stockpile of ore, which should generate meaningful gold production for the company."

Borealis’ open-pit heap leach mine project is comprised of 751 unpatented mining claims of approximately 20 acres each, totalling 15,020 acres and one unpatented mill site claim of around five acres in western Nevada.  

Nevada is home to the world’s largest gold mine, the Goldstrike Mine, which is owned by Nevada Gold Mines.  

Other major gold projects in the state include Barrick Gold’s Carlin Mine and reserves in the Cortez District, which has a significant history of gold production.