NEWLY Hong Kong listed company Hengxing Gold Holding, a business majority owned by Chinese billionaire KE Xiping, has installed an additional vertical impact crusher at the Gold Mountain project in Xinjiang region. The crusher is expected to improve the gold recovery rate at the project by reducing the size of fine crushed ore.

Preliminary results from commissioning of the crusher, which was installed at the end of August are positive and in line with the company’s expectations.

Earlier this year Hengxing launched a Hong Kong IPO seeking to raise up to US$59.7 million. KE Xiping owns 60% of the company and his son Jiaqi has 15%.

KE Xiping chairs the Xiamen Hengxing Group, which has investments in real estate, mining, auto parts, trade, electronics, transportation and dairy. He holds a stake in Hong Kong-listed Zijin Mining Group, whose shareholders include fellow billionaire Chen Fashu. KE Xiping also chairs the Xiamen Association of Industry and Commerce.

Gold Mountain is the largest gold mine in Xinjiang in terms of designed annual ore processing capacity and estimated gold production volume at full production level. Xinjiang is widely recognized as a region rich in mineral resources yet under-developed in terms of gold production.

As of December 31, 2013, the total gold resources and reserves at Gold Mountain were approximately 3.2 million troy ounces and 2.2 million troy ounces, respectively, according to an independent technical report.

Hengxing Gold commenced trial production in December 2013 and expects to achieve its designed annual ore processing capacity of 5 million tonnes in 2015. Using heap leaching technology, Gold Mountain is estimated to annually produce an average of approximately 78,000 troy ounces of gold, or about 1.7 million troy ounces in total, over an estimated mine life of 22 years.

During July and August there were about 660,000 tonnes of ore processed which equalled about 80% of designed capacity. There were about 7379 ounces produced in this period with gradually decreasing unit operating cash costs.

The company continues its studies on the proposed carbon-in-leach (CIL) project at Gold Mountain. The company previously announced that it would spend HK150.1 million from its global offering on capital expenditure for this project. It intends to engage independent experts to review the CIL project feasibility study when the operation reaches full capacity. This review will determine the economic feasibility of this project and make appropriate recommendations.

Located in Yining County of Xinjiang, Gold Mountain is about 40km north of Yining and 500km west of Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, and conveniently connected to them and local transportation hubs by roads.