Carpathian Gold (CPN-T, CPNFF-o) has doubled the resource at its Rovina Valley project in the heart of the Golden Quadrilateral of western Romania’s Transylvania region, 300 km northwest of Bucharest.
The Rovina exploration licence is about 25 km from Gabriel Resources’ (GBU-T, GBRRF-o) Rosia Montana gold project and 17 km away from European Goldfields’ (EGU-T, EGU-l) Certej gold-silver deposit. Historically, the Golden Quadrilateral has produced about 55 million oz. of gold.
Since acquiring the 100-sq.-km property in 2005, Carpathian has identified three copper-gold porphyry deposits: Rovina; Colnic (2.5 km south of Rovina); and Ciresata (4 km south of Colnic).
Counting the gold as gold-equivalent ounces, the latest National Instrument 43-101 estimate demonstrates the deposits hold 5.09 million gold-equivalent oz. in the measured and indicated category, up from the 2007 resource estimate of 1.82 million oz.
In the inferred category, the resource has grown to 5.66 million gold-equivalent oz., up from 3.69 million oz.
Dino Titaro, Carpathian’s president and chief executive, told analysts during a conference call that he was very pleased with the new figures, which represent an increase of more than 120% in gold, 35% in copper and 60% in total tonnes over the 2007 estimate.
He also said he was confident those numbers would increase through the Ciresata deposit, which was only discovered earlier this year.
Carpathian used a gold price of US$675 per oz. and a copper price of US$1.80 per lb. for the resource estimate, Titaro said.
Different base-case cutoff grades were also used for each deposit based on their respective mining methods. Rovina and Colnic are expected to be mined as open pits, while the Ciresata deposit will be an underground mine.
The cutoff grade at Rovina was based on a 0.3% copper equivalent. Rovina contains gold and copper mineralization at a 1:1 ratio (gram gold per tonne: per cent copper).
At the Colnic property, a 0.45- gram gold-equivalent cutoff was used, while for Ciresata, a 0.7-gram gold-equivalent cutoff was used. Both deposits are gold-rich copper porphyry deposits.
“We could have used lower cutoff grades,” Titaro noted. “We believe they are conservative.”
Altogether, the total measured and indicated resource for the project is 193.1 million tonnes grading 0.49 gram gold per tonne, 0.18% copper and 0.82 gram gold-equivalent per tonne, for total contained gold of 3.07 million oz., 759.1 million lbs. copper and 5.09 million gold-equivalent oz.
In the inferred category, Rovina Valley hosts 177.7 million tonnes of 0.68 gram gold, 0.17% copper, and 0.99 gram gold-equivalent for total contained gold of 3.89 million oz., 663.1 million lbs. copper and 5.66 million gold-equivalent oz.
Rovina will produce a saleable copper concentrate, but the company has yet to decide which smelter it will use.
Carpathian envisions a central plant that would be situated close to the Rovina deposit. Titaro said the company is also considering whether it should build an underground conveyor system to transport material from all the deposits to the plant.
“We’re pricing it all out and everything looks encouraging at this time,” he said. “It will probably take two to three years to build the system, but you don’t see it and you don’t disrupt the local community, so I think it’s something that will be exceptionally well received.”
Once all three deposits are up and running, Titaro forecasts Rovina Valley will mine up to 18 million tonnes per year.
Titaro said the plan of attack would probably be to tackle the Rovina deposit first, followed by Colnic. Carpathian would likely mine out Colnic first before finishing Rovina.
“We’ll probably go back to Rovina, mine it out and then put the waste rock into Colnic,” he explained.
Carpathian shares recently traded at about 10 apiece.
Over the last year, the Torontoheadquartered junior has traded between 5 and 70 per share. It has 207.3 million shares outstanding.
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