Taseevskaya - Sredny Golgotay - Baley ZIF-1 Tailings
Key Facts
| Ownership | 100% |
| Location | Zabaikalsky region, Russia |
| Mining (projected) | Open pit |
| Operating Company | Taseevskoye LLC |
Overview
The Baley-Taseevskoye group of deposits is located two kilometres south of the town of Baley (Population: 13,800) in the Zabaikalsky region of Eastern Siberia. It lies 56 kilometres south by paved road from the Trans-Siberian Railway station at Priiskovaya. Chita, the regional capital, is located 320 kilometres to the west of Baley.
The Taseevskoye deposit was discovered in 1941 and during the period 1948 to 1994 produced 6.4 million ounces of gold from 16.3 million tonnes of ore at an average gold grade of 12.2 g/t. This was produced from a swarm of epithermal gold bearing quartz fissure veins located within a circular area 1000m in diameter. The predominantly underground mining operation concentrated on three principal vein systems, leaving un-mined a large lower grade mineralized envelope contained within an argillic alteration halo surrounding the fissure veins.
Highland Gold acquired the Taseevskoye project in September 2004 at a cost of US$26.6 million with a view toward exploiting the potential for open pit mining of this large lower grade resource, which was also the subject of a 1997 bankable feasibility study commissioned by the former licence holders. The Taseevskoye project includes two adjacent sites – the Baley tailings project and the Sredniy Golgotay deposit.
In 2015, the Company decided to move forward with a pilot project to test processing ore from the Sredniy Golgotay deposit at the Novoshirokinskoye mill. Ore samples are being transported from the site and testing will be monitored by independent consultants Irgiredmet, which will also be responsible for drafting the flow sheet.
In 2018, the Company’s Board of Directors approved funding for construction of the Baley ZIF-1 Tailings heap leach project. The tailings, from the former Baley processing plant, contain an estimated 9.7 million tonnes of slime at a grade of 0.98 g/t Au. The heap leach is designed to process 840k tonnes of tailings sand per year. Construction is due to begin next year at a total estimated cost of US$ 23 million over three years. Construction design work is under way with commissioning scheduled for 2022, with an annual output of about 15k oz of gold per annum.