Vancouver – Reserve upgrades at the Alumbrera copper-gold mine in northwestern Argentina has added one-year of mine-life, until at least mid-2016, to the major open pit operation owned by Goldcorp (G-T, GG-N), Northern Orion Resources (NNO-T, NTO-X) and Xstrata (XSRAF-O, XTA-L).
Delineation drilling in the Alumbrera pit has added about 40 million tonnes of ore reserves, mostly identified in the southern end of the pit, and has led to a re-optimization of the mining plan. Proven and probable reserves now stand at 400 million tonnes grading 0.45% copper and 0.49 gram gold per tonne.
Alumbrera commenced production in 1997 and was constructed at a capital cost of about US$1.3 billion. Forecast metal output for 2006 is 400 million lbs. (181,400 tonnes) of copper and 600,000 ozs. of gold.
The mine is owned 50% by Xstrata (also operator), 37.5% by Goldcorp and 12.5% by Northern Orion.
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