• Metallurgical testwork shows excellent gold recoveries of up to 86% from oxide gold mineralization
• Agglomeration and compaction tests indicate the material is highly amenable to heap leaching
• Deposit has low preg-robbing characteristics and low reagent consumption

Helix Resources has reported positive metallurgical testwork results from the Gold Basin oxide-gold deposit in Arizona, USA. Bottle roll leach tests on reverse circulation samples returned an average gold extraction of 72% and a maximum of 86% after 72 hours of leaching. Column leach tests on diamond core samples showed gold extractions up to 80% after 67-72 days of leaching. Agglomeration and compaction tests indicated the material is highly amenable to heap leaching, with all samples passing percolation tests up to 100 metres dump height (KCA's standard recommendation is 40 metres). The Gold Basin mineralization was found to be extremely low in preg-robbing solutes, with total carbon less than 0.61% and total sulphur less than 0.01%. Reagent consumption was also low. The current Inferred Mineral Resource at Gold Basin is 8.35 million tonnes at 1.12 g/t gold for 299,800 ounces. Significant drilling has been undertaken since the 2019 resource estimate to confirm and expand the known mineralization. Helix is confident the oxide gold mineralization at Gold Basin is highly suitable for a potential low-capex, low-opex heap leach development.

The metallurgical testwork results confirm there are no significant metallurgical barriers to establishing a heap-leach gold extraction operation at the Gold Basin project. Helix is proceeding with a Resource update incorporating the substantial new drilling, and sees strong potential for Gold Basin to play an important role in its growth pipeline.