North of 60 Mining News - The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North

Nighthawk Gold Corp. April 19 reported encouraging preliminary results from its metallurgical program on the Colomac Gold project in Northwest Territories.

These initial results indicate that recoveries of up to 96.5 percent of the gold may be achieved and the rock is amenable to all standard gold recovery technologies. This is significantly higher than the 88.1 percent recoveries achieved during active mining on the property from 1994 to 1997.

"Results from this initial metallurgical testing have significantly exceeded our expectations in comparison to Colomac's known historical recoveries," said Nighthawk President and CEO Michael Byron. "In particular, Colomac material shows excellent grind characteristics, exceptional gold recoveries and responsiveness to all standard gold recovery technologies, comparing favorably to similar projects in North America. It's also important to note that the rock is exceptionally clean as no deleterious materials were detected that could otherwise adversely affect processing, or impact the environment."

Nighthawk is planning further testing to optimize and confirm these results.

-SHANE LASLEY