The Ban Houayxai Gold-Silver Operation is a producing asset for Australian-based copper and gold producer, PanAust Limited. The Operation lies within PanAust's 2,600 square-kilometre Phu Bia Contract Area in northern Laos. Commencing production in 2012, Ban Houayxai is operated by PanAust's Lao-registered company, Phu Bia Mining. PanAust owns a 90 per cent interest in Phu Bia Mining. The Government of Laos owns the remaining 10 per cent. The Operation mines an intermediate sulphidation epithermal gold-silver deposit and comprises an open-pit feeding ore to a conventional carbon-in-leach process plant. Metallurgical recoveries for gold and silver are approximately 75-85 per cent and 55 per cent respectively. To year-end 2017, the Operation had poured 0.65 million ounces (oz) of gold and 4.7 million oz of silver. The Ban Houayxai Ore Reserve supports a mine life of approximately four years from the end of 2017. The Ban Houayxai deposit is in an early Permian volcano-sedimentary unit which is part of a late Carboniferous to early Permian (310-270 million years ago) volcanic-plutonic sequence of the Truong Son Fold Belt. The deposit formed when hot saline (240-415°C, 2.7-13.0 weight per cent NaCl equivalent) fluids ascended from a geologically fertile island arc porphyry into overlying volcanics along a fault or faults in the early Permian (290-256 million years ago) (Manaka et al., 2014).
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