Cabral Gold (TSXV:CBR) - First Gold Pour in Cuiú Cuiú Beats Expectations

Alan Carter (0:00)

My name is Alan Carter, I'm the president and CEO of Cabral Gold. We have a gold project in northern Brazil, and we've just poured our first bars of gold.

Matt (0:08)

Well, that's what it's about, isn't it?

Alan Carter (0:09)

Yeah, ultimately, Matt, it is what it's all about. Yeah, it's been a while, but we're making pretty good progress. The commissioning is not complete yet, but it's nice to have some metals coming out of the ground.

Matt (0:25)

So did you get a chance to see it or did someone send a photo? I mean, and how long did you share that photo for?

Alan Carter (0:29)

Well, we're still in the commissioning process, so it's kind of a bit difficult to know time-wise. So I have a thousand other things to do, so I wasn't there for the actual first pour, but I was certainly tracking it very, very closely. So yeah.

Matt (0:45)

Right. I'm going to pop up a photograph right now in this video so people can look at it. And as I say, it is what it's about, but very few get there, so well done to you. Right.

And people will now be saying, so what next? So first pour commissioning is great. How many ounces did you actually pour during commissioning?

Alan Carter (1:04)

Well, we don't know. I mean, the Dore is, we know the Dore is about 93, 94% gold through the analysis that we've done. The rest of it is probably largely silver. So those bars have now gone through refining. And so we haven't had the report back from the refinery yet, but that's imminent.

So, the estimate is approximately 1130 ounces of gold, first of all, which is quite a lot more than we expected, to be honest.

Matt (1:33)

Right. And what's this process telling you in terms of grade and recovery? Is it broadly in line with what you thought as well?

Alan Carter (1:42)

Yeah, it seems to be that this material, this oxide material on this first pad seems to be leaching faster than we anticipated. It's leached very, very quickly in the lab test that we've done, but generally in the real world, things don't leach quite as quickly as they do in the lab. But in this case, it seems to be leaching as fast. So look, we won't know until the leaching process is complete on that first pad because it's still leaching.

There's still gold coming out of the first pad. So we're very pleased with the results. As I said, the amount of gold that came out during the commissioning process on the first pull was quite a lot more than we expected. So very, very positive. But we'll need a few more weeks to assess all the data and let the process run to completion on that first pad.

Matt (2:28)

Well, I'd say that wet circuit is in commissioning. But in terms of the things that remain to be tested before you can say, oh, look, the entire operation is functionally as designed, what exactly are you team looking at?

Alan Carter (2:42)

Well, we're pretty close to the commissioning here should be complete in the next week or so, man. So everything is basically built. The thing about, obviously, you can't pour gold unless all components of both your dry and your wet circuit are working so the construction is done and the commissioning is almost complete. So it's a very positive first step. Now, obviously, as I said, we got to do the reconciliation. Obviously, the mine plan and the blocks that we mine at a certain grade, and we won't know exactly how that grade that came out of the block model for the mine relates to what the amount of gold we've actually recovered until leaching of that first pad is complete. So...

Matt (3:27)

Right. In terms of the stacking, how much have you actually stacked or how much are you stacking each day?

Alan Carter (3:32)

Well, we're ramping up. I think we've been stacking in the order of about 15, 16 hundred tons a day in the last few days, but obviously the target here is 3,000 tons a day. So there is a gradual ramp up and it will take us a few weeks to get up to 3,000 tons a day.

But we're well on the journey. Okay. It's good.

Matt (3:57)

Well, like I say, you've done what most people don't do, which is actually pretty cool. But it seems that kind of risk management, risk mitigation, I know it's a fairly simple process, talking about heat glaciers, oxide, it's all kind of good. But things like mining rates crushing, stacking, recoveries, equipment reliability, these are all the things that you need to stay in control of in terms of like steady commercial production.