Sun River Gold Completes the Purchase of an additional 5% NPI in the Mexico Mine Tailings Project

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 19, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Candente Gold Corp. (TSXV:CDG) ("Candente Gold” and/or the “Company”) is pleased to advise that Sun River Gold (“Sun River”)  has made the final payment of US$111,000, to increase their ownership in the Mexico Mine Tailings at El Oro Mexico, such that the company’s NPI will be reduced from 10% to 5% after the first US$1,500,000 is received by the Company.

The Mexico Mine Tailings contain an Inferred Resource* of 1,267,400 Tonnes grading 2.94 Au g/t, 75.12 Ag g/t containing 119,900 ounces of gold and 3,061,200 ounces of silver. 

Sun River has the option to acquire 100% of the Tailings Project by making staged payments totalling US$300,000 (paid), bring the tailings into commercial production by October 31, 2021, and grant to the Company a 10% NPI, Life of Mine royalty (the “Candente Royalty”) as well as the Municipality’s 8% NPI on production from the properties.  Sun River had the right to reduce the NPI payable to the Company to 5% by paying an additional US$200,000 in payments (now paid). 

Candente Gold’s subsidiary, CCM El Oro Jales, has an agreement with the municipality of El Oro which provides the Company the right to recover all available gold and silver from the tailings deposit and pay to the Municipality of El Oro an 8% Net Profits Interest (“NPI”).  Candente Gold also retains the first US$1.5M from the 8% NPI payable to the Municipality.  Sun River must make all NPI payments to the Municipality. 

Sun River is a private Arizona based corporation managed by an experienced team of mining professionals with a combined 80 years of mining experience in Mexico, including specific experience in the reprocessing of old gold and silver tailings.  Sun River has advised the Company that it has completed a preliminary internal engineering study (“Internal Study”) for the Mexico Mine Tailings Project, and that it intends to continue development of the project with the objective to enter commercial production.  Sun River has recently advised the Company of the following key points in the development of the project:

• Sun River has signed a letter of intent and made a down payment to purchase 25 hectares of land near the township of Nopalera approximately 5km by road north of the current location of the Mexico Mine Tailings, which is suitable for plant site and residue storage.
• The project life is estimated by Sun River to be 1 year of engineering and construction and 4 years of tailings material reclaim and processing (at 1,000 tonnes per day) followed by reclamation.
• Sun River advises that based on flotation test work at a recognized, independent US metallurgical lab, a standard metallurgical flotation process is expected to recover 65% of the gold and 60% of the silver to a marketable concentrate.
• Sun River intends to market the gold/silver concentrate on the open market.
• Sun River intends to contract with a local contractor who will use front end loaders and dump trucks to reclaim the tailings material and haul it to the proposed process plant approximately 5 kms away.   

Jim Bradbury, partner in Sun River Gold, Registered Professional Metallurgical Engineer in the State of Arizona, is considered the Qualified Person for the content of the Internal Study.   The metallurgical test work has been conducted by Minerals Technology LLC, a recognized metallurgical testing laboratory located in Tucson, Arizona whose clients include Florence Copper, ASARCO and BASF Mining Solutions.