2026 Metallurgical Program Achieves 90% Copper Recovery and 88% Gold Recovery at the Hope Brook Gold Project
Big Ridge metallurgical results exceed historical grades, advancing the PEA toward production at its project.
Big Ridge Gold Corp. reported positive results from its 2026 metallurgical program at the Hope Brook Gold Project (HBGP), which was conducted at Base Metallurgical Labs and directed by Canenco Consulting Corp. The company is currently evaluating a conventional flotation and leaching flowsheet for its Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA).
Key findings from the program include the following:
- Locked-cycle flotation produced a concentrate grading approximately 24% copper, 300 g/t gold, and 93 g/t silver.
- Copper recovery reached 90.3%, while leaching of cleaner tails returned an overall gold recovery of 88%.
- Rougher testing demonstrated up to 96.6% gold recovery and 98.6% copper recovery.
- Gravity recovery identified that 53.7% of gold could be recovered into approximately 1.75% of the feed mass.
These results significantly exceed historical production recoveries of 82%-90% Au at ~3.0 g/t feed, despite testing lower-grade feed of ~1.08 g/t Au. Next steps include additional locked-cycle testing, tailings resource updates, geophysical surveys, and continued drilling at the Main and 240 Zones.
Metallurgical results de-risk the proposed processing plant design and directly support the ongoing Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA). High recoveries at lower feed grades improve potential project economics and enhance smelter offtake prospects. This announcement is a direct follow-up to the January 2026 update regarding high-grade concentrate production. The market was already aware of the metallurgical program's existence and direction. The news is incremental and expected as part of the standard PEA timeline. It validates project viability but does not contain genuinely new, unexpected, or market-moving information.
Big Ridge Gold Corp. is a Canadian exploration and development company focused on the Hope Brook Cu-Au Project in Newfoundland and Labrador. The company holds 100% ownership of Hope Brook following a July 2025 acquisition.
Hope Brook is a past producer that operated from 1987 to 1997. The project currently holds an Indicated resource of 16.19M tonnes grading 2.32 g/t Au (1.2M oz) and Inferred resources of 2.215M tonnes grading 3.25 g/t Au (231k oz).
The project features established infrastructure, including a 28-person camp, airstrip, ice-free dock, and grid-connected power. The company is advancing a PEA and environmental studies to move the project toward production.