Excalibur Resources Ltd. (the “Company”) is pleased to provide an update on the progress towards production in its 49% subsidiary, Minera Catanava S.A. de C.V. (“Catanava”). The land use environmental permit received in November 2011 allowed the construction and installation of the plant. The ball mill, jaw and cone crushers and ore bins were installed in December. The conveyors, belts and motors were delivered, installed and tested in January-March and all are operational. In April, 100 tons of dump material was loaded into the raw ore storage bin and 50 tons was crushed to ¼ inch material into the fine ore hopper that is being batch tested on the three recently installed Action Mining Micron Wave tables. The material is being tested by increasing the size of the batches in order to optimize the flow, the grind and the gold recoveries. Various adjustments have been made including installing feeders for the wave tables and a holding tank.
According to the President of Minera Apolo, S.A. de C.V., and our partner, Don McLeroy, who is managing the Catanava operation, “We are in the final testing stage. We have been running 1-2 hour batches of material at a rate of 8 tons per hour (192 tpd run rate), a process of ‘Testing/Adjusting/Fixing’ and everything is working. We are fine tuning to increase recuperation from around 84% recovery at -80 mesh grind, and our plans are to increase to well over 90%. We need to grind the ore finer to release the encased gold and do some additional fine-tuning of the large Micron Wave Table. We have produced some concentrate from the various tests of dump material so will pour a small dore bar shortly. We are in “startup test mode”, which this week will include testing for an entire 8 hour shift and hope to finalize all equipment adjustments, including reducing the size of the material being ground to minus 120-150 mesh over the next month or so that we are in commercial production later in 2012. “
The construction of the building which contains the wave tables, concentration room, furnace room and plant manager’s office is almost complete with the installation of floors, electrical wiring and security doors. The walls around the plant will be raised, re-inforced with concrete and covered with tin. The outside ore bins and conveyor belts have been covered. The PVC pipe for the tailings line of 500 meters has been received but has not been installed. Assay and dore furnaces have been ordered. Other equipment required for underground development in due course include winches, jacklegs, railcars, caterpillar truck rentals, etc.
Official Water Permit received from CONAGUA
The final signature for the water permit for approving water use in production has been granted and received from the National Water Commission (CONAGUA). The Mayor of Pinos and the Governor of Zacatecas have signed the explosive permit application which was sent to the Department of Defense for final approval. The official military inspection is now expected in June.
Excalibur is pursuing the micro-mining approach which is the search for small, near surface deposits that can be extracted at a low cost. The Catanava project is in the Pinos Gold District, in the State of Zacatecas, Mexico which was discovered by the Spanish in 1546 and mined until the Revolution in 1810, by Cornish miners from 1870 to 1911, and most recently by an individual miner from 1935 to 1941. Recent exploration work was undertaken through a Penoles/Bethlehem Steel JV from 1975 to 1983, All-North Resources in 1993-4, Hecla Mining Company 1995-7, and by Romarco Minerals from 2006-7. Minera Catanava S.A. de C.V. is 51% held by Minera Apolo S.A. de C.V. which owns and is providing the land, mineral and mining rights and management of the project, and 49% is held by Excalibur which has provided the financing.
Excalibur Resources Ltd. is a junior exploration mining company focused on the discovery, development and mining of economically viable precious and base metal mineral resources.
On behalf of the Board of Directors:
“Tim Gallagher”
Chairman For more information please contact:
Tel: 416-987-0298
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.excaliburresources.ca
