March 27, 2019 Dear Client,
Further to our updates, last month we announced that deliveries would occur in late April. I am sorry to advise you that we expect to be delayed a further 45 – 60 days.
Key plant components that were to be onsite this month have been delayed, both by manufacturing plant late deliveries and transport difficulties arising from flooded out roads that are still currently impassible. We have over 25 large truckloads of our plant equipment to move over 94 km of difficult road (parts of which are still flooded) to paved roads. From the paved roads we are another 3+ days hauling from the south east of the country to our mine site.
We require this machinery and equipment to be onsite to complete this next stage of expansion.
We set an ambitious target to get our new CIP plant key components moved over 94 km of difficult road to paved roads before the rains came but we failed to accomplish this in time. We had difficulty obtaining a large mobile lifting crane in that part of the country which we needed to lift the heavy components onto the trucks. Some individual components weighing over 30 tons. Additionally, we had to build 3.5 km of road to bypass a flooded river delta area. This flooded area was causing great access difficulty in even getting basic supplies into our temporary Camp. By the time we had completed the bypass road, the rains came early. We have progressed as far as we can in the disassembly of the newly purchased plant without a heavy lifting crane onsite.
The key mixing equipment components from South Africa which we had advised about delays earlier (and were to be ready in mid-January) are now ready for shipping to Tanzania.
At our mine site, we have completed fabricating the large mixing tanks required for first phase of our new CIP plant and await the arrival of the components from the south of the country. To give you an idea of scale, the tank farm will grow from 6 tanks to 35 tanks. The tailings pond facility alone is 3 football fields long and 2 football fields wide. When this next phase is completed and the last phase completed in 3rd quarter 2019, this plant will be the largest of its kind in Tanzania.
We now have a large excavator and bulldozer onsite to continue construction of the new access road to the top of Gold Hill for the trucks to bring gold bearing ore to our crushing and milling areas.
We have continued to expand infrastructure as well as security at both of our 2 Camps, (our residence and work camps).
We have completed building a hard rock milling testing area with our main Camp and are pleased with our test results. We are awaiting guidance from the Ministry under the new Mining Act and Regulations for the new operating and audit rules for our continued use and the expanding of that test area.
At our alluvial area, we have had success in our making our processing more efficient with the throughput of large volumes of ore. We await a piece of equipment that will reduce our water consumption and after installing and testing then we are ready for final Ministry inspection and approvals to commence that area of increased gold production.
As I have said earlier “Our Mine has been growing as we develop it. To international standards, we have immediate mineable proven reserves of over 200,000 ounces (6,500 kg) having a value greater than US$200,000,000. Continued mine development accesses additional gold reserves which will be supported through our impeding project financing.”
These developments and progress meet our goal of large increases in our production so that when we commence deliveries we can rapidly complete all deliveries and fully honor our Forward Gold Sales commitments and our late interest commitments.
I will be able to provide more specific details as we get closer to completion of our new large processing plant. I will update further next month.
For further information on these operational issues affecting your expected delivery or any other questions, please contact us directly at:
via email at; delivery@rubycreekgold.com
Ruby Creek Resources,
11835 W. Olympic Blvd, Suite 1235, Los Angeles, CA USA 90064
Kind Regards
Rob Slavik, CEO
Ruby Creek Resources