Gold Reach announces positive metallurgical results from the West Seel deposit

VANCOUVER, May 14, 2014 /PRNewswire/ - Gold Reach Resources Ltd. (GRV: TSX-V) (Gold Reach and/or the Company) is pleased to announce results of metallurgical test work conducted on a large composite sample from the West Seel deposit at the Company's 100% owned Ootsa Property, located adjacent to the producing Huckleberry Mine south of Smithers, British Columbia.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Excellent Overall Metallurgical Results – The West Seel deposit shows very good metallurgical results by conventional froth flotation recovery methods, with rougher flotation recoveries up to 95.1% for copper and 94.5% for molybdenum.
• Rapid Flotation Kinetics at West Seel – The flotation kinetics of the West Seel material are rapid achieving >91% copper and molybdenum recoveries after only 6 minutes of flotation in a laboratory cell.  
• Copper Concentrate – A copper concentrate containing 24.3% copper, 8.92 g/t gold, and 200.9 g/t silver was obtained after 2 cleaning stages with overall recoveries of 89.2% for copper, 75.7% for gold, and 79.2% for silver.
• Molybdenum Concentrate – A molybdenum concentrate grading 51.9% molybdenum was produced after 2 cleaning stages with overall molybdenum recovery of 79.7%.

Metallurgical Studies
Metallurgical testing was performed by Inspectorate Exploration and Mining Services Ltd. located in Richmond British Columbia, and advanced testing was done on a 314 kilogram single composite representative sample from 2013 drill core from the West Seel deposit.  Test grinding was performed and two batch rougher and two batch rougher-cleaner tests were completed to verify the metallurgy of the new sample and optimize the reagent scheme.  An optimized copper concentrate was produced and two molybdenum separation tests were performed.

Overall the West Seel composite has very similar metallurgical characteristics as the Ox and East Seel deposits, however, the flotation kinetics of the West Seel sample were comparatively faster, achieving >91% Cu and Mo recoveries after only 6 minutes of flotation in a laboratory cell.  Results for 2 rougher flotation tests are summarized below.  The best recoveries of copper and molybdenum were 95.1 and 94.5%, respectively in test F2.

Rougher Circuit Results West Seel Sample

A pyrite scavenger flotation test was conducted and resulted in an additional 17% gold recovery in test F1, bringing total gold recovery up to 83.1% in that sample. This is a very significant increase in gold recovery for the West Seel deposit, which contains a pit constrained total of 409,000 ounces of gold in the measured and indicated categories plus an additional 1.1 million ounces of gold in the inferred category.  A gold mineralogical study is underway to better understand the mineral associations and liberation size of gold in the sulphide matrix, and this information may help optimize gold recoveries.  A copper separation test resulted in a 2^nd cleaner stage concentrate grading 24.3% copper, 8.92 g/t gold, and 200.9 g/t silver with overall recoveries of 89.2% for copper, 75.7% for gold, and 79.2% for silver.

A molybdenum separation test resulted in a 2^nd cleaner stage concentrate grading 51.9% molybdenum with an overall molybdenum recovery of 79.7%.  A third cleaning stage resulted in a molybdenum concentrate grade of 53.6%, however, overall molybdenum recovery was reduced to 54.9%.  It was therefore recommended that only two stages of cleaning be employed in the molybdenum circuit.

Based on the current metallurgical test work the predicted metallurgical recoveries are summarized in the table below.  The West Seel deposit shows excellent copper recovery at 92.1% with molybdenum, gold, and silver recoveries in line with operating porphyry deposits.  With the pyrite concentrate included, the overall recovery for gold would increase to 72.2% and for silver to 60.7%.   Further test work on a larger sample, perhaps a pilot plant trial, would allow locked-cycle tests to be run to see how recirculating tails might increase overall recoveries.

Predicted Metallurgical Concentrate Grades and Recoveries Under Optimized Conditions

Dr. Shane Ebert, President of the company stated, "metallurgical test work has now confirmed that excellent recoveries are achievable at all three deposits on the Ootsa project by industry standard processing techniques, and additional test work might be able to increase recoveries even further.  The metallurgy of the West Seel deposit appears to be simple and copper and molybdenum separation can be achieved very rapidly. These positive metallurgical results continue to remove project risk as the company advances the Ootsa project towards preliminary economics".

Plans for 2014
Planning for the 2014 exploration program at Ootsa is underway and drilling is scheduled to commence during the first week of June.   The focus for 2014 will be to optimize the economic potential of the project through expanding known zones of higher grade mineralization at the West Seel deposit, and for the first time targeting several high grade silver base metal veins.  In addition several porphyry copper exploration targets surrounding the Ox and Seel deposits will be tested.

A summary of 2014 exploration targets at Ootsa is available on our website at http://goldreachresources.com. 

For more information please see our website at http://goldreachresources.com.  All of our recent news releases can be viewed on the Company's website at http://goldreachresources.com/news/2013/.

About Gold Reach Resources
The Ootsa property is an advanced stage exploration project containing the East Seel, West Seel and Ox porphyry systems all with NI 43-101 compliant resources.  The Company has completed 134,878 metres of core drilling on the property to date, with 36,135 metres completed during 2013.   In total the Ootsa property contains compliant pit constrained resources totaling 1.25 billion pounds copper equivalent in the measured and indicated categories and 1.66 billion pounds copper equivalent in the inferred category, using a 0.2% copper equivalent cut off.

For more information on the Ootsa property and the contained resources please see our website at http://goldreachresources.com.

Dr. Shane Ebert P.Geo., President of the Company, is the Qualified Person for the Ootsa project as defined by National Instrument 43-101 and has approved the technical disclosure contained in this news release.

"Shane Ebert"

Shane Ebert, President/Director

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Safe Harbour Statement: The Company relies upon litigation protection for "forward-looking statements." The Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward- looking statements in the managements beliefs, estimates obligations or other factors should change.

SOURCE Gold Reach Resources Ltd.