Wellgreen Platinum Provides Project Update

Wellgreen Platinum (TSX:WG) provided an update on ongoing activities at its Wellgreen project in Canada’s Yukon, reiterating results of its PEA released in March 2015. The company is assessing a number of potential considerations that could improve the economics of the project.

As quoted in the press release:

The 2015 PEA showed strong economics based on a project relying on conventional processing methods to produce a sulphide flotation concentrate. The Company plans to implement additional metallurgical test programs designed to further optimize concentrate grades and metal recoveries from the main geo-metallurgical domains using conventional processing to produce a bulk concentrate or separate nickel and copper concentrates along with PGMs. In addition, as highlighted in the 2015 PEA, the Company is assessing a number of potential opportunities which, if successful, may improve the economics and production levels from the Wellgreen project. One of the opportunities currently under evaluation is the potential to supplement conventional processing with the secondary processing of certain flotation tail materials using hydrometallurgy or direct leaching, as this has the potential to increase total recoveries of PGMs and base metals. The targeted tailings material contains up to an estimated 20-30% of the total PGMs and gold, plus 10-20% of the nickel that does not report to the flotation concentrate. As highlighted in the 2015 PEA, preliminary testing of secondary processing methods by SGS Lakefield on magnetic concentrate and tail materials suggests the potential for PGM and base metal recoveries of over 90% using hydrometallurgy. The Company has initiated additional hydrometallurgical tests to better understand the amenability of Wellgreen mineralization for secondary processing and to assess the potential economics of such processes.

The Company has also commenced an evaluation of the cost and benefits of defining and quantifying the exotic PGMs – rhodium, iridium, osmium and ruthenium – in an effort to potentially incorporate these metals into the mineral resource estimate for the Wellgreen project. Historic production and metallurgical testing demonstrated that these exotic PGMs report to the concentrates, and this could increase total PGM content by as much as 10-25% based on historical metallurgical testing data points. However, the exotic PGMs were not included in the economics of the 2015 PEA since they were not included in the Wellgreen project’s mineral resource estimate. The Company is currently carrying out an assessment of Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QA/QC) on its existing exotic PGM assays and is reviewing the availability of additional sample material from past programs to complete additional analyses that may allow for the exotic PGM sampling to be brought into the mineral resource estimate for the Wellgreen project.

Click here to read the Wellgreen Platinum (TSX:WG) press release