AMN - LIBERIA: Performance increase at New Liberty

Aureus Mining has increased gold recovery levels and production performance at the New Liberty gold mine in Liberia.

Total gold production since 1 January 2016 of 11,001 oz versus 17,172 oz produced in the second half of 2015 consists of:

-          5478 oz of gold produced in total for January 2016

-          5523 oz of gold produced in the first three shipments of February 2016.

The cumulative total of the past four gold shipments amounts 7323 oz of gold, over the past 22 days of operations. Operational performance improvements have been achieved in both the gravity and CIL circuits of the process plant as a direct result of plant optimisation exercises which commenced in mid-January 2016;

Overall process plant recovery levels have increased during January and have reached a current average of 85% recovery for February 2016, with 87% recovery achieved over the past seven days of operations. Further recovery improvements are expected following the addition of new carbon into the CIL circuit of the process plant.

As a result of the on-going process plant optimisation activities at the New Liberty gold mine which were started by the company in mid-January 2016, overall plant recovery levels have increased towards design specifications. Continued optimisation of the gravity circuit has shown incremental improvements and there have been further operational improvements in CIL leach kinetics. Additionally, on-going preventative maintenance activities have allowed plant availability to improve and have resulted in more stable operating conditions.

Throughout the year to date, the ball mill has been operating at an average of 82% of its designed capacity, including planned downtime for ongoing optimisation. It is anticipated that overall plant performance will continue to improve towards design levels throughout the coming weeks, with Commercial Production expected to be declared by the end of March 2016. Aureus will declare full commercial production once the entire process plant is operating at full design capacity and in a manner consistent with management expectations.

As a direct result of the operational improvements achieved within the process plant, gold recovery levels have steadily increased from approximately 73% in mid-January to an average recovery of 85% throughout February 2016, and have continued to increase to in excess of 87% recovery during the last seven days of operations.

To date, the New Liberty process plant has processed 426,523 tonnes of ROM fresh ore and lower grade oxide material. Mining operations at New Liberty continue to progress, with run of mine ROM stockpiles currently standing at 79,525 tonnes of fresh ore at a grade of 2.40 grams/tonne and oxide and transitional stockpiles standing at 74,014 tonnes at a grade of 1.31 grams/tonne.

The company continues to progress with the development of an updated mine plan which will be finalised by month end. This business plan will form the basis of discussions between it and Rand Merchant Bank (RMB), Nedbank and the Export Credit Insurance Corp of South Africa (ECIC), to agree upon an appropriate debt repayment schedule following the deferral of the first debt repayment which was due on 31 January 2016.

www.aureus–mining.com

News courtesy of International Mining