Kelowna, British Columbia, November 10, 2022 – SOUTH ATLANTIC GOLD INC. (TSX-V: SAO) (“South Atlantic” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce that the Brazilian environmental agency for the state of Ceará has commenced the evaluation process to license the Company’s operations. The Company has also completed metallurgical testwork on the main ore zones of the Pedra Branca project as required by the mining license process.
Highlights
- The environmental agency (SEMACE – Secretaria do Meio Ambiente do Ceará) review will provide key guidance (“Termo de Referência”) for the environmental requirements specific to Pedra Branca mining operations.
- The Company anticipates a request for an Environmental Impact study of the Queimadas target tenement area (click here to view Map 1).
- As part of the National Mining Agency requirement, the Company concluded metallurgical testing in the Queimadas project area, resulted in gold recoveries of 92.6% from direct cyanide leaching (P80 @ 75 microns) and 63.8% from gravity-recoverable-gold (Falcon Gravity Concentrator) from fresh rock, which also has visible pyrite and pyrrhotite.
- The company is now evaluating a path to a trial mining license (“Guia de Utilização”) within its tree main tenements that are part of the main ore zone and are under the mining concession licensing stage (Queimadas, Igrejinha and Mirador).
Douglas Meirelles, President and CEO stated, “The excellent metallurgical results from the main ore zone within the Queimadas tenement and the current status of the licensing process allows the Company the option to pursue a small-scale production license for trial mining. It should be noted that a trial, small scale mining license does not preclude the Company from continuing the exploration activities in the entire tenement, nor does it exclude us from transitioning from small-scale mining into a larger operation in the future. We will continue to update the market as we advance the steps with the governmental agencies and ultimately unlock the proposed government grants through our partnership agreement.”
MAP 1
Overview of the current inferred resource area and main project zone of operations and highlights potential future exploration programs