Eurasia Mining plc
("Eurasia" or the "Company")
West Kytlim Update April 2019
Eurasia Mining PLC, the palladium, platinum, rhodium, iridium and gold producing company, is pleased to provide an update on activity on site at the West Kytlim Mine for March and April 2019.
All of the necessary mining equipment has now arrived on site at West Kytlim, the circuit is being assembled in advance of first washing of gravels, which is expected within the following two weeks.
Improvements to the washing circuit which were demonstrated to have performed well in the 2018 mining season have been approved and are being installed by the Company's contractor. Specifically; a Jig (a fluid-based gravity separation device), has arrived at site and will operate with an additional concentration table adjacent to the wash-plant. These are designed to increase recoveries of precious metal beyond what was achievable in 2018.
Infill reserves upgrade drilling at Bolshaya Sosnovka is ongoing. Samples from the 100m drilled to date are currently being processed at the on-site laboratory, and results will be provided to the market in due course when available.
Highlights:
· All necessary mining equipment in place for mine start up
· Additional gravity recovery circuit added for the 2019 season aimed at increasing recoveries
· Drilling program ongoing at the Bolshaya Sosnovka area - video available on the Company's Vimeo channel
· Wash-plant within the Kluchiki area relocated after the 2018 season. The directors believe the Kluchiki area still holds sufficient mineable gravels to support a full season of production in 2019, and two wash-plants operating concurrently through 2019-2020.
Christian Schaffalitzky commented; 'It has been a busy couple of weeks for both our own staff in Ekaterinburg and those of our contractor. Safety on site is paramount, especially during assembly of the plant. We now look forward to building on the success of the 2018 season, which has set a benchmark to surpass in 2019'.
Further details:
Washing of gravels is expected to commence at the Kluchiki Area ('Kluchiki') in the next two weeks. The wash-plant has been relocated within the Kluchiki Area, and is intended to operate at full capacity for the entire 2019 mining season. The Company continues to develop plans for adding an additional wash-plant, either contracted or owner-operated during 2019-2020, which should significantly improve total throughput.
A scheduled infill drilling program at the Bolshaya Sosnovka Area is now advanced. 100m of drilling have already been completed, a further 250m are planned for later in the season. Samples from the 100m of drilling completed are now being processed at the laboratory on site.
Results of this drilling program will be published in due course . The results will also be compiled in an updated reserve report for submission at Uralnedra, as soon as practicable. This will complete the reserves infill drilling program at Bolshaya Sosnovka, on approval of the report by the Russian Mining department all gravels at that location will be considered mineable, in accordance with the Russian Mining Standard.
As previously reported (see RNS dated 25 October 2018) a report based on the Kluchiki Area within the West Kytlim project was submitted by the Company's local subsidiary Kozvinsky Kamen ('KK') to Uralnedra (the Urals branch of the Federal Subsoil licencing agency). Further clarifications have subsequently been sought by Uralnedra, and were answered by the Company. The directors of Eurasia are confident the discussions will lead to a positive result in the near term.
Sufficient mineable reserves are already in place at the Kluchiki Area for a single washplant operating at full capacity throughout the 2019 season and for the operation to be upscaled with the addition of a second wash-plant during 2019-2020.
The option of using information from the 2018 and subsequent mining seasons to apply a factor to measured resource and reserve grades, thereby lifting the measured grade and contained reserves of the deposit significantly, is being discussed with Uralnedra. It is standard practice in the industry generally for mining data to supersede exploration data, especially for alluvial deposits of this nature. Further clarity on this matter will be achieved by demonstrating production data from the 2019 season, the second year of production at the mine.
A video of the drilling operation at Kluchiki has been added to the Company's Vimeo Channel at
https://vimeo.com/user71951711
For further information please see the Company's web page at
www.eurasiamining.co.uk
and follow the Company on twitter at;
https://twitter.com/eurasiamining
The information communicated within this announcement is deemed to constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulations (EU) No. 596/2014. Upon the publication of this announcement, this inside information is now considered to be in the public domain.
Further background to the West Kytlim Mine:
West Kytlim is currently the second largest alluvial platinum mine globally. The operation is seasonal and requires running water to wash platinum and other PGM and gold bearing gravels from free digging river deposits. The operation was brought to industrial scale production in 2018, with a total of 165kg raw platinum produced over the course from May to November 2018.
Enquiries:
Eurasia Mining Plc
Christian Schaffalitzky/ Keith Byrne
+44 (0)207 932 0418
WH Ireland Limited (Nomad)
Katy Mitchell/James Sinclair-Ford/Matthew Chan
+44 (0)161 832 2174
First Equity Limited (Joint Broker)
Jason Robertson
Tel: +44 (0)20 7374 2212
Optiva Securities (Joint Broker)
Christian Dennis
Tel: +44 (0) 20 3137 1902
