Taruga Minerals Ltd. is excited to announce encouraging results from its initial metallurgical testwork at the Weioko Gold Deposit, located within the East Normanby Gold Project on Normanby Island, Papua New Guinea. The tests confirm that Weioko gold is free-milling and responds well to a simple, conventional processing approach, achieving gold recoveries above 92% across different ore grades.
The preliminary testwork focused on near-surface oxide mineralisation and demonstrated that coarse gold can be efficiently recovered through gravity separation, with finer gold recovered by standard cyanide leaching techniques. Notably, the high-grade Composite 2 sample, with a gold grade of 14.15 g/t and silver at 11 g/t, achieved a gold extraction rate of 96.3% and silver recovery of 87.4%. This composite included a standout rock chip sample grading 99.45 g/t gold, one of the highest grades recorded from Weioko, which also maintained the strong 96.3% gold recovery.
Similarly, the low-grade Composite 1, with 0.59 g/t gold and 4 g/t silver, returned an impressive 92.6% gold and 92.2% silver extraction, confirming consistent performance across the deposit’s grade range. Silver recoveries between 87.4% and 92.2% are promising, aligning with notable historical drill intercepts such as 2.9 meters at 113 g/t silver and 2.9 meters at 99 g/t silver from previous drilling campaigns.
These results were achieved using a 75μm grind size, standard for gold processing plants, with relatively low consumption of sodium cyanide and minimal presence of harmful elements. The findings support a straightforward gravity plus cyanidation processing route, significantly enhancing technical confidence as Taruga Minerals prepares for its maiden drilling campaign at Weioko.
With these positive metallurgical test outcomes, Taruga Minerals is well-positioned to advance its exploration and development plans, bringing it closer to unlocking the potential of the Weioko Gold Deposit.
