DESCRIPTION: Petaquilla Minerals Ltd. is a Vancouver-based mineral exploration company developing the Molejon Gold deposit in Panama. The company's 100%-owned Molejon Gold Project is scheduled to go into production in 2009. Anticipated throughput for the project for the first year of production will be 2,200 tonnes per day. The plant will utilize three ball mills and a carbon-in-pulp processing facility. Plans are in place to increase production to 5,000 tonnes per day with the addition of a SAG mill as the supply of mill feed permits.
WEBSITE: http://www.petaquilla.com Corporate PresentationAnnual Report 2007-2008
The information below is based on the most recent information we have
received from analysts and the companies participating in The Gold Report.
We encourage you to visit the company's web site for updates.
"Last week, the company announced that the Molejon gold mine achieved commercial production:
The Molejon gold mine hosts 1.1 million ounces of gold resources (all categories). The Molejon mine is currently designed to run at a 2,200 tpd throughput rate and is expected to produce 100,000 ounces of gold per year.
The company is considering an expansion of the mill throughput to 5,000 tpd from 2,200 currently. The expansion could potentially be achieved through the addition of a SAG mill to the current milling operation.
Petaquilla is also considering the development of a heap leaching operation at the Molejon mine to exploit the lower-grade resources, which have been excluded from the current milling scenario. Column leach testing has indicating potential gold recovery of 80+% through a heap leach operation, which could potentially enable the company to expand its expected mineable reserve to 1.2 million ounces of gold, from 0.5 million ounces currently.
In late-2010, the company also announced the discovery of a 12 kilometer by 4 kilometer gold in soil anomaly at its Oro Del Norte concession. In 2010, the company intends to follow up the initial grab samples collected in 2009 with a dedicated drill program to test the anomaly.
Petaquilla completed a C$12 million private placement in December 2009. With roughly US$45.0 million in negative working capital, primarily reflecting short-term debt obligations, this financing has given Petaquilla some breathing room to ramp up production to begin to generate some free cash flow to shore up its balance sheet. An analyst has visited the properties held by Petaquilla Minerals Ltd. Partial payment or reimbursement was received from the issuer for the related travel costs."
