Searchlight Minerals Corp. provides Clarkdale operations update
October 02 2008 - 9:00AM
PR Newswire (US)
COMPANY ON TRACK TO COMPLETE INITIAL PRECIOUS AND BASE METALS
PRODUCTION MODULE BY YEAR-END HENDERSON, NV, Oct. 2
/PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Searchlight Minerals Corp. (OTCBB: SRCH)
(the "Company"), is pleased to provide investors with the following
update on development and construction activities at its Clarkdale
Slag Project in Clarkdale, Arizona. UPDATED STATUS REPORT
Searchlight Minerals continues to report significant progress
towards the completion of the Company's initial 100 to 250
ton-per-day (tpd) commercial production module for the extraction
of precious and base metals from a 20 million-ton slag pile in
Clarkdale, Arizona. The slag pile is located approximately six
miles from the historic United Verde Copper Mine in Jerome,
Arizona, which produced some of the richest copper ore ever mined
in the U.S. Clarkdale housed a smelter operation for the United
Verde Mine, and when smelting activities ceased in 1947, a
metal-bearing slag pile was left at the Clarkdale site. Independent
engineers, operating under chain-of-custody procedures, have
estimated that the slag pile is comprised of approximately 20.2
million tons of material that contains approximately 0.50 ounces of
gold per ton, along with silver, copper, zinc and a ferro silicate
byproduct. Thus far during 2008, the Company has completed the
renovation of an existing 26,000 sq. ft. building at the Clarkdale
site and has received the final Certificate of Occupancy from the
Town of Clarkdale. This building houses most of the components of
the initial full-scale production module, including crushing,
grinding, leaching, filtering and ion exchange (IX) circuits.
Presently, all major equipment items, including conveyor systems,
impact mills, a vibratory mill, leaching tanks, filter presses, ion
exchange systems and lab equipment, have been installed in the
building. The vast majority of operations related to the production
of precious and base metals are anticipated to occur within this
primary processing facility. The electrowinning (EW) process, which
converts copper and zinc from solution to plated metal, will be
housed in a separate building that is currently under construction.
The EW building is on schedule for completion in November 2008. The
Company recently completed the connection of its onsite well to the
primary processing building. This step eliminates the need for
municipal water and gives the Company complete control over the
process water supply. The screening plant for the demonstration
phase has been delivered to the site, which allows the Company to
begin processing the raw slag for use in the process. The Company
has also completed extensive demolition and preliminary grading on
an approximately 12 acre site adjacent to the slag pile. That site
is anticipated to serve as the location for the facilities
expansion planned in full production. CURRENT FOCUS The Company is
now actively engaged in the testing and start-up phase of the
project. Currently, equipment is being tested, and it is
anticipated that this will be followed by the integration of all
major equipment components, including the crushing, grinding,
leaching and filtering circuits. Component integration involves the
fabrication, installation and connection of the equipment circuits
to each other and to the buildings' centralized electrical,
plumbing and air-flow systems. Testing and start-up of the full
production module is anticipated to commence when systems
integration is complete. However, since grinding represents one of
the most critical aspects of the production process, a bypass
system is being installed that will allow for separate testing and
start-up of the grinding circuit, while work continues to complete
the integration of the remaining circuits. Systems integration
plumbing on the grinding circuit is expected to be completed in
October 2008, electrical systems integration is approximately 80%
complete, and the air-flow and pump systems that move material
through the circuit are being installed. A short term bypass in the
materials flow system will allow for startup and testing of the
grinding circuit in October 2008. FUTURE MILESTONES "While progress
towards the completion of a fully functioning production module
continues, it remains difficult for us to predict with great
precision when specific future milestones will be attained," stated
Ian McNeil, Chief Executive Officer of Searchlight Minerals Corp.
"For example, the recent Gulf Coast hurricane caused an
unanticipated delay in the delivery of certain equipment.
Nonetheless, our team continues to do a marvelous job in achieving
day-to-day engineering and construction goals. The Company has
often been able to reallocate resources when minor delays occur, in
order to advance completion dates in other areas." CONCLUSION "The
startup process is comprised of a very complex series of
interconnected events that depend on a large number of moving
parts," noted McNeil. "We are still on track to be processing slag
material through the grinding circuit by the end of October 2008,
and through the other circuits in the main process building shortly
thereafter. The Company remains in position to complete the EW
building by the end of November 2008 and to have a fully
operational production facility by the end of 2008." The objective
of this update, and others that will follow, is to allow our
stockholders to more fully appreciate the Company's interim
accomplishments and progress towards its stated goals and
objectives. About Searchlight Minerals Corp. Searchlight Minerals
Corp. is a minerals exploration company focused on the acquisition
and development of projects in the southwestern United States. The
Company is currently involved in two projects: (1) the Clarkdale
Slag Project, located in Clarkdale, Arizona, is a reclamation
project to recover precious and base metals from the reprocessing
of slag produced from the smelting of copper ores mined at the
United Verde Copper Mine in Jerome, Arizona; and (2) the
Searchlight Gold Project, which involves exploration for precious
metals on mining claims near Searchlight, Nevada. The Clarkdale
Project is the more advanced of two ongoing projects that the
Company is pursuing. The Searchlight Gold Project is an early-stage
gold exploration endeavor on 3,200 acres located approximately 50
miles south of Las Vegas, Nevada. Searchlight Minerals Corp. is
headquartered in Henderson, Nevada, and its common stock is listed
on the OTC Bulletin Board under the symbol "SRCH". Additional
information is available on the Company's website at
http://www.searchlightminerals.com/ and in the Company's filings
with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-Looking
Statements This Press Release may contain, in addition to
historical information, forward-looking statements. Statements in
this news release that are forward-looking statements are subject
to various risks and uncertainties concerning the specific factors
disclosed under the heading "Risk Factors" and elsewhere in the
Company's periodic filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission. When used in this news release, the words such as
"could," "plan", "estimate", "expect", "intend", "may",
"potential", "should", and similar expressions, are forward-looking
statements. The risk factors that could cause actual results to
differ from these forward-looking statements include, but are not
restricted to the Company's limited operating history,
uncertainties about the availability of additional financing,
geological or mechanical difficulties affecting the Company's
planned geological or other work programs, uncertainty of estimates
of mineralized material, operational risk, environmental risk,
financial risk, currency risk and other statements that are not
historical facts as disclosed under the heading "Risk Factors" and
elsewhere in the Company's periodic filings with securities
regulators in the United States. Consequently, risk factors
including, but not limited to the aforementioned, may result in
significant delays to the projected or anticipated production
target dates. DATASOURCE: Searchlight Minerals Corp. CONTACT: Carl
Ager, Vice President at (702) 939-5247 or via email at ; RJ Falkner
& Company, Inc., Investor Relations Counsel at (800) 377-9893
or via email at
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