CMJ article: "stockpiling of ore as early as March"
Jan 4th NR: "the new crushing circuit is to be operational by the end of April"
Jan 4th NR: "we expect to be pouring gold this summer"
Summer begins on June 21st.
It looks like they are aiming to start stockpiling ore at some point in March and then begin crushing at end of April or early May. That will give them 7.5 weeks before they hit summer. It means they will have 7.5 weeks to move the first bit of stockpiled ore from crushing stage to first gold pour stage.
This should be plenty of time if everything works to plan. I'm sure there are many steps at the processing stage, but at least it's not a heap leach operation (I think a heap leach process would require a lot more time than the conventional Lamaque milling process). Here are 3 keys stages that come to mine in Lamaque's process:
1) crushing
2) gravity circuit gold recovery - this might recover 50 to 60 percent of the gold
3) application of cyanide solution - go bring the gold recovery up to 96%
I don't think any of the 3 steps are too time consuming (that would result in 7.5 weeks), but I am sure there are a number of other key steps required prior to pouring gold.
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