Cerrado Gold to proceed with heap leach project at Las Calandrias
Cerrado Gold has announced that the company received all required permits for the gold heap leach project at the Las Calandrias deposit in Santa Cruz, Argentina (“MDN”).
In a statement, the company said that as of March 3rd, 2023 it has secured all the required environmental permits relating to the development and operation of the Las Calandrias heap leach project, adding that construction works remain ongoing with first ore expected to be stacked on the heap leach pad during April and first gold pour is scheduled before the end of May.
Cerrado also noted that the heap leach operation is targeted as part of the strategic growth to increase aggregate production rates at Cerrado’s Argentina operations to 90,000 oz per annum from the 2022 production rate of 53,672 oz at MDN with reductions in all-in sustaining costs (AISC).
“Production growth and cost reductions are planned from the development of two heap leach operations; firstly at Las Calandrias and secondly at the Martinetas area,” the company said.
MDN is also expected to develop high-grade underground resources that are currently known and available by directly accessing the resources from the base of the existing high-grade pits such as at Paloma.
CEO and Chairman Mark Brennan commented, “We are pleased to have been granted all the necessary approvals to commence operations at our initial heap leach facility at Las Calandrias which reflects the high quality of the work completed by the team on the ground at MDN. Construction is progressing extremely well and we are now one step closer to delivering on our production growth strategy at MDN to exploit the all available resources more fully.
“Development is proceeding exceptionally well at both MDN and at MDC (Brazil); we believe that the intrinsic value creation to shareholders will be strongly evidenced by the production growth at MDN by year end and the feasibility study in Brazil which is expected by the end of May.”
Cerrado is a Toronto based gold production, development and exploration company focused on gold projects in the Americas. The company is the 100% owner of both the producing Minera Don Nicolás mine in Santa Cruz province, Argentina, and the development project, Monte Do Carmo located in Tocantins State, Brazil.
