Canadian-headquartered Galantas Gold has confirmed the completion of its trial stoping program at the Omagh gold project in Northern Ireland.
There were six stopes mined and backfilled successfully at the County Tyrone project, using a narrow vein, modified Avoca longhole open stoping method in two separate blocks. The minimum stope width was 2.2 metres planned, with a stope length of 10 to 15 m. The vertical distance between the stoping levels was approximately 8 m from roof to floor.
Following the trial’s success, Galantas is seeking to increase the distance between levels to 12 m.
“Relatively low-grade areas of the mine were selected for the trial to assess the suitability of the mining method and also to serve as a training project for the locally trained mining operators,” officials said.
The company also confirmed that it was able to mine a total of 3,175 t from the six stopes during this phase, and that work was completed in a safe, controlled manner. Reconciliation was completed for two of the stopes, and grades returned an average percentage increase of 113% from a 2014 technical report.
“Trials have led to an optimized cycle of two days from the initial stope blast to completion of backfill, thus reducing the potential for dilution and also streamlining the process. This mining method can now be applied to more than 240 stopes which are already planned for the Kearney and Joshua zones, with grades in the range of 2.0 grams per tonne (g/t) gold to 17 g/t,” Galantas said.
CEO Mario Stifano said the trial has brought it a high level of understanding on the mine development process, and also helped it conclude the Cavanacaw mine can be mined successfully utilizing a longhole mining method and backfill.
“The trial stoping has provided sufficient information to bring a high level of confidence for a successful stoping program in the future,” he added.
Source: Galantas Gold