Azure Minerals Limited (Azure or the Company) is pleased to announce the results of preliminary metallurgical testwork for its Loma Bonita Gold Prospect. Industry standard bottle roll tests have been undertaken at the laboratories of Kappes, Cassiday and Associates in Reno, Nevada, USA. The testwork focused on two different size fractions, comprising ground (average size of ground samples is +80% passing 80 micron) and crushed (average size of crushed samples is 80% passing 11.3mm) particle sizes. These sizes are being tested to simulate gold recoveries that might be expected to be achieved from conventional milling (eg carbon-in-pulp or carbon-in-leach processing) and heap leach gold processing, respectively.
Excellent gold recoveries of between 88% and 97% were achieved on the ground material, with an overall average recovery of greater than 93% (refer Table 1). Tests on the crushed material achieved gold recoveries of between 42% and 89%, with an overall average recovery of more than 73%.