Drilling by
The most recent drilling was done from the mine’s 2575 Level (785 metres deep) and largely confirms the results of drilling from the 2500 Level, where 21 drill holes indicated a zone up to 11 metres in true width along a 130-metre strike length (T.N.M., Feb. 15/99).
The new drill holes all intersected mineralization over core lengths of at least 1.8 metres. The longest intersection was 8.7 metres. Average gold grades on the intersections ranged from 2.7 to 27.6 grams per tonne.
Two holes drilled from the 2575 level, 381 metres east of the shaft, each intersected two separate mineralized zones. In one, the zones were 1.8 and 2.1 metres long, with average grades of 10.4 and 3.3 grams gold per tonne. In the second, the mineralized intersections were 2.1 and 5.6 metres long and graded 11.8 and 22.4 grams.
The zone lies next to a quartz-feldspar porphyry dyke, and becomes thicker in places where the dyke thins. The zones are open to the east and downdip.
A crosscut is now being driven 400 metres east of the shaft on the 2575 level, and drilling will recommence from a station at the end of the crosscut as soon as it is complete. The holes from that drill station will test the downdip extension of the zone below the 2575 level.
Campbell has also completed several holes from the surface, which investigated the mine’s Main zone at depths between 900 and 1,050 metres below surface. At a vertical depth of 907 metres, one intersection graded 8.1 grams gold per tonne over 13.1 metres, and at 1,044 metres, a second intersection graded 18.4 grams over 7.5 metres. Both these mineralized zones appear to line up on the downdip extension of the new zone discovered between the 2500 and 2575 levels.
Development on the mine’s 2750 and 2925 levels (838 and 892 metres deep) is expected to reach the updip extension of those zones in the next two to three months, and Campbell plans to conduct further investigation once the workings reach that area.
Campbell showed a loss of $20.8 million (or 14 cents per share) on revenue of $36.3 million in 1998, compared with a $40.4-million loss on $52.6 million in the previous year. Campbell’s operating loss declined slightly, to $10.1 million, from $12.2 million the year before; a further $12.5 million was written down over the course of the year, about $10 million of which was in the carrying value of the company’s Cerro Quema project in Panama.
The Joe Mann mine produced 70,100 oz. gold in 1998, down slightly from the previous year, but cash costs fell to US$257 from US$264 per oz. Recovery from leaching at the mothballed Santa Gertrudis mine in Sonora state, Mexico, contributed another 12,300 oz. at a cash cost of US$242 per oz.
Campbell continues to explore on its concessions near Santa Gertrudis, which now include ground being acquired from a private Mexican company, Minera Roca Roja.
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