Red Rock Resources (LON:RRR) updated the market on Tuesday with news on progress across their operations and investments.
Executive Chairman Andrew Bell took time to answer some investor focused questions for MiningMaven. Here's what he had to say:
COLOMBIA
MM:Notwithstanding the customs and transportation delays affecting a small number of parts, do you remain confident that production can be scaled up in Colombia and, to assist our readers, can you re-confirm your likely production scalability for (say) the next year?
AB:It was annoying that we had a delay affecting a small number of parts, as this affects the speed of the production ramp-up. We were told by a local supplier before Christmas that he had some parts he was to supply sitting in his yard in Medellin. It wasn't true; a few were being imported and had not arrived in the country. This isn't satisfactory of course, and it is not something easy to detect, but it is a minor irritation causing a minor delay. We were able to get hold of an experienced gold plant engineer from the U.S. this month to go out and 'audit' the plant and the mine for us; his conclusions were that both were satisfactory, and that he concurs with the view that they will be capable of producing 150 tpd once smoothly operating. In terms of grade, we are producing material from El Limon at 12 g/t plus, which at this stage is satisfactory. So the big picture is that all is on track, which is a great relief. In our nightmares, there would be a fatal flaw somewhere in the mine, somewhere in the plant, or grade would turn out to have been completely misstated. Such things happen: happily, not to us.
As to increasing capacity later in the year, this is still the objective, and we will start work on that soon.
MM:Are you satisfied with the gold grades achieved to date and are you confident that higher grade material can be processed going forward?
AB:We believe that higher grades than 12 g/t will be attainable, based on historic production. The material from the second mine, Machuca, is lower grade currently at 6 g/t, but this is maiden production and no drill exploration has been carried out, so Mineras Four Points is flying blind at the moment.…
