St. Jude buys heap-leach plant for Goulagou-Rounga

Vancouver — Determined to exploit the oxide resources at its Goulagou-Rounga project in Burkina Faso, St. Jude Resources (SJD-V) has arranged to buy a heap-leach gold processing plant.

The partly refurbished plant, also in West Africa, includes crushing, agglomeration, stacking and heap-leach equipment, as well as a power supply, carbon column gold extraction modules, and an extensive array of spare parts and supplies. St. Jude says some new components and further refurbishing are required if the plant is to be fully operational and capable of producing 75,000-120,000 oz. gold per year.

Through a 1-year option agreement, the junior can acquire the plant for US$1.5 million, including US$250,000 worth of St. Jude shares.

The previous operator at Goulagou-Rounga, Channel Resources (CHU-V), reported gold recoveries of up to 95% from preliminary metallurgical testing of oxide samples from the GG2 zone, and St. Jude recently discovered two parallel zones, which fall within the footprint of a single open pit.

Channel calculated a preliminary inferred resource equivalent to 774,700 oz. gold, though this estimate has not been verified independently.

St. Jude is drilling in the GG2 area in an attempt to define resources and test targets.