SOLOMON Islands Gold (SIG) Resources Pty Limited is making headway in its decent attempts to invest in the Solomon Islands.
The Company has been undertaking gold exploration in various areas in the country and have spent millions of dollars so far in revenue for the country and in communities.
There were challenging times in the initial efforts to invest but SIG Resources Pty Limited continued to foster its initial investment phases on the spirit of partnership, transparency and legal processes.
Now, SIG has a pipe line of projects from early exploration through to “ready to mine” in different areas in the Solomon Islands.
As part of our awareness and transparency, our work must be known and at the moment one area has been explored and drilled to a level just prior to JORC reporting.
The resources include: a near surface epithermal deposit suitable for an open pit operation, a copper gold porphyry deposit and an alluvial deposit amenable for gravity separation
The alluvial mining project is suitable for a system of multiple 200 t/h processing plants. The mine and plant are based on the combination of sound financial modelling and technical design.
SIG has highly functional management team with very lean operating practices and a great business model totally suited to Solomon Islands culture.
The Projects
SIG is part of a debt free, private company group based in Queensland, Australia. They have companies registered in Australia and Solomon Islands with Foreign Investment Board (FIB) approval from the Solomon Islands Government as required. SIG commenced full time work in Solomon Islands in 2013.
The Solomon Islands Government together with various ministries have been an enormous help, and in particular the Honourable Minister David Paacha, his Director of Mines, Thomas Toba, the Minerals board and their exceptional teams have been of immense help throughout all aspects of the projects.
SIG is developing potential projects in Solomon Islands including West Guadalcanal and Western Province. Both show positive early indications with various other areas currently being reviewed.
Appointment of Contractors
SIG has appointed a well-known and experienced Australian mining and civil engineering group as the principle contractors across its sites. Oglivie’s Civil and Mining have been in the mining and civil engineering fields for over 2 generations as a family operated business. They are known to deliver their projects on time and within budget and are top quality operators. SIG has committed to bring the best and most experienced contractors into their operations.
Project Overview
The projects have road or port access via Honiara, the capital city. Once mining operations commence at the known locations of gold deposits, SIG plans to migrate to Stage 2, to conduct further exploration of their lease areas. This will involve the drilling, excavating and sampling of more than 60 priority targets to find further placer gold deposits.
Mining Methodology
SIG has made the decision based on its studies to commit to taking the project to Stage 3 – Mining.
The mining method will be a retreating open pit, where one side is excavated, supplying ore to the process plant, simultaneously tailings and overburden placed into the lee side of the pit. This approach allows new pits to be opened with minimal disruption to the operations and is essential Processing methodology
The first three processing plants for bulk sampling have arrived in Honiara. The plant has been designed to be flexible and capable of tolerating different sediments including clays known to be difficult to disperse and separate from gold particles, as well as being moveable to the mining areas.
SIG will never use any chemicals in their process, which are dangerous to the community or the environment such as cyanide or mercury. This is a company policy and commitment.
SIG Resources Pty Ltd is the holding company of Solomon Islands Gold Pty Ltd.
Solomon Islands Gold Pty Ltd (SIG) is a mining and exploration company currently prospecting in the Solomon Islands. The Solomon Islands are well known to have high potential gold, bauxite and nickel.
