The Twin Hills project, located within Namibia’s prospective Damara sedimentary mineral belt, is planned to be developed as a conventional open-pit gold mine with a whole-ore carbon-in-leach (CIL) metallurgical processing plant
Osino to advance development at Twin Hills project. (Credit: Alex Banner from Pixabay)
Canadian gold exploration and development company Osino Resources has selected Australia-based Lycopodium Minerals to support the planned development of the Twin Hills gold project.
Lycopodium Minerals will lead the Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) for the Twin Hills gold project, which follows a Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) completed in June this year.
The Twin Hills project is located within Namibia’s prospective Damara sedimentary mineral belt, close to the producing, open-pit Navachab and Otjikoto gold mines.
Osino plans to develop the Twin Hills project as a conventional open-pit gold mine with a whole-ore carbon-in-leach (CIL) metallurgical processing plant.
Osino president and CEO Heye Daun said: “The award of this FEED study marks another key milestone for Osino as it moves the Twin Hills Gold Project closer to production.
“Having worked closely with Lycopodium on successive technical studies over the last few years, we are delighted to have selected them as the engineering lead towards the implementation of the Twin Hills project.
“Lycopodium is recognised for their gold processing plant design expertise and their world-class track record of on-time and on-budget project delivery in Africa and globally.
“At the same time, the Osino team is making great strides in further advancing various studies and activities towards completing bulk power and water supply and towards concluding the permitting process for the project.”
The primary objectives of the FEED package and related activities include the development of plant designs and procurement documents for major long-lead equipment items.
The package includes the compilation of the master schedule and budget estimates, detailed planning of borehole water supply, access road re-routing and power line design and construction.
It also includes an investigation of alternative tailings filtration equipment with the potential to reduce capital costs, along with finalising the remaining process engineering design for the plant.
Lycopodium will update proposals from preferred vendors to re-validate capital and operating cost estimates and optimise the orientation of the tailings storage facility (TSF).
It will prepare trade-off studies of mining and mine vehicle maintenance strategies, and update the hydrological and hydrogeological models, along with the flood mitigation plans, among others.
Osino said that additional resource drilling is expected to improve the definition of the mining reserve and increase the extent of the identified mineral resource.
The project implementation will begin once all the permissions and full project financing are in place, and a formal investment decision (FID) is announced, said the Canadian miner.