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Tagged with: Sino Gold Limited

Apr 2004 - Sino Gold Limited

Sino Gold Limited (SGX) – Bringing Jinfeng into Production at 200,000ozpa

  • Sino Gold currently has two main projects in Central China, being its Jianchaling operating gold mine in the Shaanxi Province and its Jinfeng project in Guizhou Province. There are a number of other projects mainly in Northern China that are at various stages of acquisition and exploration.
  • Jianchaling has been winding down from 100,000ozpa in 2002 to possibly only 50,000oz in CY2004. Extensions to its life and potential increases to its production appear to be almost certain with 5 gold target areas being explored, however, at this stage their eventual actual outcome is almost impossible to predict.
  • Jinfeng is in the process of completing its feasibility study, which with over 3moz in resources and extensions to the stratabound mineralisation with intersections up to 59m @ 8.6g/t infers that board approval should be a formality. Gold production is expected to commence in early 2006 and build up to 200,000ozpa during that year.
  • Apart from potential success and ultimate production in its other joint venture projects in Shandong Province with Gold Fields, and over White Mountain in Jilin Province, SGX is at the negotiation stage in its “China Review Project” to obtain one or more joint venture agreements on non-refractory (free milling) gold projects that could be finalised in 2004, and which could then be brought into production.

Dec 2006 - Sino Gold Limited

Sino Gold Limited (SGX)

  • The Jinfeng plant is HUGE, SGX appear to have a ~US$250m plant at the cost of ~US$90m to US$95m.
  • Initial grades are higher than we expected at Jinfeng with the first bench showing a clump of ~14g/t values, and inferred higher reconciliations, resulting in expected initial Year 1 open-cut grades ~20% higher at 6 to 7g/t.
  • Just how much gold Jinfeng can produce annually is open to debate. Rated as 180,000ozpa based on 1.2mtpa, peak production appears to have the potential to be ~300,000ozpa to 400,000ozpa or so. (It was not surprising post the visit that Gold Fields established a new 50/50 JV with SGX targeting potential 5moz orebodies with 500,000ozpa production, & increased their holding in SGX to 17.4%).
  • This comment was written following an analysts’ trip to Jinfeng ahead of the China Mining Conference in Beijing in November 2006, at which SGX received the Mine Development of the Year Award for the Jinfeng Gold Project. The trip highlighted the size of the Jinfeng plant, its potential capacity, early indications of higher grades than expected and included a presentation on SGX’s exploration activities in China.
  • The Ausenco (AAX) built Jinfeng plant as shown in Figures 1a and 1b is HUGE with the main section about 0.5km long and the whole plant at least 800m long. It looks like it should easily achieve the usual 20% (for Australian built plants) above rated capacity, and that is before the 50% expansion. (The 20% above normal usually results from the fact that a 15% design contingency is built into the size components in Australian plants, however a 25% design contingency has been used at Jinfeng (based on accepted practice in the Asian region)). While the 50% expansion (at a possible cost of US$15m from cashflow) appears likely to occur, numerous variations are to be tried first to see what the plant can achieve before it is expanded.