Bissa Hill resource near 150,000 oz. (October 25, 2004)

An independent consulting firm has outlined a resource in two zones at the Bissa Hill deposit in east-central Burkina Faso. The property is held by Jilbey Gold (JLB-V).

SRK Consulting calculated a measured and indicated resource of 1.4 million tonnes grading 3.3 grams gold per tonne on the southern and northern zones. Another 106,000 tonnes grading 2.9 grams were classed as inferred.

The cutoff grade was 0.5 gram per tonne, and mineralized zones had to be blocks of at least 5 metres. High assays were cut to 20 grams per tonne.

The two zones occupy a 900-metre-long section of the Sabce shear zone, a northeast-striking structure that has been traced for about 30 km. The Central zone, a 140-metre mineralized segment of the shear zone that has seen only limited drilling, was not included in the resource estimate, and more drilling on the area has been recommended.

Jilbey also calculated an in-house resource estimate using a 2-gram-per-tonne cutoff grade in order to see if a smaller, higher-grade deposit might have better economics. That resource did include some parts of the Central zone.

The higher-grade resource amounted to 480,000 tonnes grading 5.6 grams gold per tonne, classified as measured and indicated. A 150,000-tonne inferred resource in areas with sparse drilling graded an average of 5.4 grams per tonne.

Jilbey believes there may be potential for shipping Bissa ore to the Taparko project, operated by High River Gold Mines (HRG-T), about 125 km to the northeast.