Alta pours gold at Olinghouse

Alta Gold (ALTA-Q) has begun producing the yellow metal at the Olinghouse mine near Reno, Nev.

The operation employs a gravity circuit, which produces concentrates that are melted into dore before being shipped to refiners.

Alta is also loading heap-leach pads with lower-grade ore, and production from this source is to begin by mid-October.

Full production at the annual rate of 100,000 oz. is expected by year-end, and it is believed this rate can be sustained over five years. Average cash costs are projected to be less than US$200 per oz.

Proven and probable reserves at the end of 1997 were 12.2 million tons grading 0.04 oz. per ton, equivalent to 512,800 oz. Capital costs are expected to total about US$18 million.

Olinghouse is the newest gold mine to open in Nevada — a feat of which Alta President Robert Pratt is proud. “While other companies are closing down mines or curtailing production, we’ve opened the only new mines in the state during 1998,” he says.

In addition to Olinghouse, which started up in July, Alta began pouring gold at its comparatively small Griffon mine at the beginning of the year.

Situated near Ely, Griffon cranks out 1,000 oz. per week at a cash cost of US$145 per oz.

The company recently purchased put options, fully hedging its anticipated gold production through to the end of February 1999 at US$335 per oz. and thereafter, until the end of 2001, at US$280 per oz.