Monument Announces Ground-breaking Ceremony Held at Selinsing For Flotation Construction in Malaysia

 

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 09, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Monument Mining Limited (TSX-V: MMY and FSE: D7Q1) ("Monument" or the "Company") is pleased to report the progress of the flotation plant at the Selinsing Gold Mine in Malaysia, and to announce that a ground-breaking ceremony (Figure 1) has been held at the mine site to herald the return of the principal contractor Seong Henng Engineering Works Sdn Bhd (“Seong Henng”) to carry out the construction of the flotation plant.

President and CEO Cathy Zhai commented, “We are very happy to report the progress of the flotation plant construction at Selinsing; our on-site team is managing the project and is overseeing the principal contractor Seong Henng. Together we are working to complete the construction of the flotation plant to a high standard, safely, diligently, on time and on budget ready for dry commissioning at the end of June 2022.”

Figure 1: Ground-breaking Ceremony Ribbon Cutting at Selinsing Gold Mine is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/2093b803-17fa-495e-9167-279f895ed6c6

Charlie Northfield, General Manager and the project sponsor at the Selinsing Gold Mine commented: “It is a great pleasure to see the return of Seong Henng, our long-standing principal contractor partner, to play a major role in the construction of the flotation plant. Seong Henng is a local Malaysia-based manufacturing Company, and had historically constructed the Selinsing Gold plant and its expansion successfully.”

The flotation plant construction includes project management, project validation, flotation design and engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning. The flotation plant construction project is 50% complete to date.

Detailed Engineering Design

Mincore Pty Ltd. (“Mincore”) previously completed the detailed engineering design and has now finalized the 3D model of the new flotation processing plant with provision for the future addition of the BIOX® plant and ancillary works (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Finalized 3D Model of Sulphide Flotation Circuit Addition to Selinsing Gold Plant is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/af324d08-9757-45c0-8959-aec4cc231596

Procurement

The contract for the supply of flotation cells was awarded to BGRIMM Machinery and Technology Co Ltd of Beijing, China. Manufacture of the flotation cells has been completed and the factory acceptance tests were successfully carried out on January 25^th-26^th, 2022. Packing is in progress and the shipment is due to depart Tianjin on March 15^th, 2022.

Metso Outotec Corporation of Finland is supplying the flotation concentrate and water recovery thickeners. Fabrication work and parts procurement has commenced. Trial assembly is scheduled for April 12^th, 2022 and the thickeners are scheduled to be delivered to site in May / June 2022. The thickeners are of segmented / bolted design to allow for rapid assembly once received on site, as time will be short to complete the installation on time.

The flotation concentrate filter press is being supplied by McLanahan Corporation of Pennsylvania, USA (“McLanahan”). All equipment parts are on order and fabrication is underway with expected completion in March 2022. The filter press assembly is due for completion on April 7^th, shipping on April 12^th and delivery to site in May/June 2022.

Other equipment that is contracted out includes but not limited to: Slurry pumps with 50% complete and shipment is scheduled for May 9^th, 2022, the Afromix agitators have been completed and are expected to arrive in Port Klang, Malaysia on March 28^th, 2022.   The flotation air blowers and compressor were ordered and are in progress with 30% completion, with delivery scheduled for May 27^th, 2022. The contract to design, manufacture, deliver and commission the containerized MCC switch room was awarded with delivery is expected on May 13^th, 2022. Purchase orders were also issued for the concentrate sampler and the helical rotor reagent pumps; manufacturing was in progress for both orders. Manufacturing of 11kV / 415V transformer was reported as 100% complete.

Major Construction Contractor Engagement

The dedicated project team is complete and comprises the project manager, assistant project manager, lead engineer, senior engineer, electrical engineer, procurement engineer and clerk of works. The project team oversee the construction work.

Seong Henng has been appointed as the principal contractor. They previously carried out construction work to build and expand Selinsing gold processing plant over the past 10 years. They refurbished and commissioned the CITIC ball mill as part of the first phase gravity-only process plant in 2009; built and commissioned the second phase carbon in leach circuit subsequently in 2010; and constructed/commissioned a new CITIC ball mill and three new leach tanks in 2012 for the third phase plant expansion. Seong Henng received the Letter of Award with a commencement date of January 12^th, 2022, a contract period of six months and a completion date of July 7^th, 2022.

R&D Work

The completed pilot plant comprises ball mill and classifier, rougher / scavenger flotation cells and three stages of cleaner flotation. (Figure 3). A one tonne sample of transition ore was crushed in the laboratory fine jaw crusher to 100% passing 2mm to provide feed for the pilot plant ball mill. The sample was processed using the same reagent regime planned for the full-scale plant. A total of 50kg of flotation concentrate was produced and a sample of this was sent to McLanahan for filter press testwork. Antimony leaching tests were conducted to support gold concentrates marketing efforts.

Figure 3: Flotation Pilot Plant is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/9e4e3edb-1d0a-4230-8190-25405da06139

Civil Foundation Work

Seong Henng mobilized to site on January 22^nd, 2022 and commenced delivery of reinforcing steel (rebar), bar bending equipment, formwork, HDPE piping and fusion machine. Temporary benchmarks were set out for survey tie-in.

Civil foundation work is progressing with the construction of the retaining wall extension. Final excavations were completed, rebar and formwork were installed, and the first concrete pour was carried out on February 17^th, 2022 (Figure 4). The retaining wall extension is 50% complete to date. Work in this area will continue in parallel with the new reagents mixing building foundations, followed by civil works for the concentrate and water recovery thickeners, reagents warehouse and the filter press building. Fabrication of structural steel and tanks is ongoing at Seong Henng’s workshop.

Figure 4: First Concrete Pour at Flotation Foundation is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/db3adc6e-9ec9-46e8-9e99-3b201080fad4

Other contractors working on the construction site have: rerouted the HV power cables to the primary and secondary ball mills, connected power and communications cables to the project office, carried out plate bearing tests over the plant footprint, and tested soil resistivity for the new transformer.

Transition to Flotation

Dry commissioning of the new flotation plant and associated equipment is scheduled to start from June 1^st, 2022 onwards. The CIL plant will continue operation until June 30^th, 2022. Tie-in and wet commissioning of the flotation plant will commence on July 1^st, 2022 and continue to July 14^th, 2022. Ore commissioning is expected to start on July 15^th, 2022. The gold remaining in circuit will be recovered by emptying the leach and CIL tanks of slurry and bagging the harvested carbon for subsequent elution. The elution circuit will continue to operate for around a month after the CIL plant shutdown.

About Monument

Monument Mining Limited (TSX-V: MMY, FSE:D7Q1) is an established Canadian gold producer that 100% owns and operates the Selinsing Gold Mine in Malaysia and the Murchison Gold Project in the Murchison area of Western Australia. It has 20% interest in Tuckanarra Gold Project jointly owned with Odyssey Gold Ltd in the same region. The Company employs approximately 200 people in both regions and is committed to the highest standards of environmental management, social responsibility, and health and safety for its employees and neighboring communities.

Cathy Zhai, President and CEO
Monument Mining Limited
Suite 1580 -1100 Melville Street
Vancouver, BC V6E 4A6

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION visit the company web site at www.monumentmining.com or contact:

Richard Cushing, MMY Vancouver T: +1-604-638-1661 x102 rcushing@monumentmining.com

"Neither 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."

Forward-Looking Statement

This news release includes statements containing forward-looking information about Monument, its business and future plans ("forward-looking statements"). Forward-looking statements are statements that involve expectations, plans, objectives or future events that are not historical facts and include the Company's plans with respect to its mineral projects and the timing and results of proposed programs and events referred to in this news release. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". The forward-looking statements in this news release are subject to various risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. These risks and certain other factors include, without limitation: risks related to general business, economic, competitive, geopolitical and social uncertainties; uncertainties regarding the results of current exploration activities; uncertainties in the progress and timing of development activities; foreign operations risks; other risks inherent in the mining industry and other risks described in the management discussion and analysis of the Company and the technical reports on the Company's projects, all of which are available under the profile of the Company on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Material factors and assumptions used to develop forward-looking statements in this news release include: expectations regarding the estimated cash cost per ounce of gold production and the estimated cash flows which may be generated from the operations, general economic factors and other factors that may be beyond the control of Monument; assumptions and expectations regarding the results of exploration on the Company's projects; assumptions regarding the future price of gold of other minerals; the timing and amount of estimated future production; the expected timing and results of development and exploration activities; costs of future activities; capital and operating expenditures; success of exploration activities; mining or processing issues; exchange rates; and all of the factors and assumptions described in the management discussion and analysis of the Company and the technical reports on the Company's projects, all of which are available under the profile of the Company on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.