Galgatain Gol Placer
Some 90 kg fine Gold will be mined in about 4-6 months beginning in May 2021.
The placer is located in a low mountain forest-steppe zone bordering the taiga with a cold and humid climate in Khuder Soum in northern Selenge, in the western North Khentii gold belt. Bugant and Darkhan are 15 km respectively 80 km and Ulaanbaatar is 190 km away as the crow flies. It is surrounded by a state-protected forest area.
Geologically the mine is located in the Lower-Middle Jurassic Orkhon-Selenge basin, on the Siberian tectonic plate which is bordered by the Mongolia-Okhotsk suture line in the South. This tectonic line marks the northward subduction and closure of the Mongol-Okhotsk ocean under the Siberian plate in the Middle Jurassic - Lower Cretaceous. The subduction caused the rise of the Andean-type Khentii mountains and the emplacement of magmatic intrusions which are associated with gold veins owing to the dewatering of the magma. Tectonics brought gold veins towards the surface, where they were exposed to the action of erosion and rivers deposited the gold elsewhere in valleys.
The placer gold of Galgatain Gol is found in Quaternary river sands and gravels in the upper reaches of the Galgatain Valley. The Galgatain Gold placer lies close to the Bugant and Yeroo placers, which belong to the well known gold placers in Mongolia. The gold is coarse (almost all is over 0.3 mm). Fineness is 850 - 960. There are an upper and lower gold-bearing sand superimposed on each other representing differently meandering channels of the same river (Galgatain) and a shallow third placer at the outfall of a side river (Khailaast). Gold concentration of the sands is high with up to 1.2 and 1.9 g Gold per m3.
Financials
We plan to mine the gold together with partners Durvun Tal LLC, a subsidiary of Mongol Alt of Darkhan, and MNO LLC under a production sharing contract. MNO will build and operate the mine. This placer is financially interesting because of its high gold grade and little sand overburden.
Total financial investment will be approximate USD 1.9 Million.
We estimate the net value of the placer at NPV10 USD 3.4 Million (Net Present Value discounted at 10% p.a.) and the ROI at 79% at the future gold price of USD 1900.
