PanTerra Gold Upgrades to Las Lagunas plant to improve gold, silver production

PanTerra Gold is focused on improving the rate and density of feed to the Albion carbon in leach processing plant at the company’s Las Lagunas Project in the Dominican Republic.

The company began productcrusher for iron ore in karachiion at Las Lagunas in May, using high grade refractory tailings from the Pueblo Viejo mine.

Operations at Albion have been functioning as expected since then, however they have been temporarily suspended to allow for upgrades to the plant.

The plant will be restarted following the installation of a bucket wheel dredge this week, to provide consistent material density and optimise the efficiency of the plant.

As a result of the shut down, dore production will be delayed from its expected start in mid-June.

Dore will comprise 10% gold and 90% silver, and Las Lagunas is expected to produce about 69,000 ounces of gold and 630,000 ounces of silver per annum.

The Las Lagunas project is expected to generate free cash flow of nearly US$100 million within 18 months, in addition to repaying Macquarie Bank’s $37.5 million project loan.

Another bonus for PanTerra is the company will recover its investment in the project of around $90 million to 30 June 2012 under the profit sharing agreement with the Dominican Republic Government.

The Government will then receive 25% of operating profits, but PanTerra will not pay any income tax on its profits.

At a gold price of around US$1,400 per ounce and a silver price of about US$28 per ounce, Las Lagunas could generate around $300 million in surplus cash over the next six and a half years.