Sandspring ups resources at Toroparu

Sandspring Resources (SSP-V) put considerably more tonnage into its indicated resource category, showing that its Toroparu gold-copper deposit in Guyana is shaping into a significant project.

The company had been drilling over the past year with an eye toward optimizing its open-pit shell model, and now says Toroparu has an indicated resource of 105 million tonnes of ore grading 0.86 gram gold and 0.12% copper for 2.89 million oz. gold and 288 million lbs. copper or 3.69 million gold equivalent oz. The cutoff grade used was 0.4 gram gold.

The deposit now has an inferred resource of 38.8 million tonnes at 0.72 gram gold and 0.08% copper for 895,000 oz. gold and 66 million lbs. copper or 1.08 million gold equivalent oz.

Sandspring’s recent drilling revealed evidence of a near-surface, higher-grade section of the deposit, which could serve as a starter pit. That higher-grade area sits within the indicated resource shell and includes roughly 38 million tonnes grading 1.47 gold equivalent oz.

The deposit has so far been defined over a strike length of 800 metres and to a vertical depth of 400 metres and remains open in all directions.

The updated estimate, which boosts indicated resources by 1.7 million gold equivalent oz., serves as a benchmark for the company, which only began trading on the TSX Venture Exchange in December 2009.

“The company now has a sufficiently robust, potentially openpittable resource to consider advancing Toroparu through to feasibility,” Sandspring’s president Abraham Drost said in a statement.

Its next move would be to dive into a preliminary economic assessment of the deposit, focusing on the economics of a phased mining approach, which mines a starter pit.

The original resource estimate — done in October 2008 — was based on 29 diamond drill holes, totaling 9,493 metres and 16 mineralized trenches.

That estimate outlined an indicated resource of 45.6 million tonnes grading 0.93 gram gold and 0.16% copper for 1.99 million gold equivalent oz. It included 36.8 million inferred tonnes of 0.82 gram gold and 0.13% copper for 1.3 million gold equivalent oz.

The updated resource estimate considered another 34 diamond drill holes totaling 17,604 metres. A two-year trailing average on the metal prices was used for the estimate, which put gold at US$955 per oz. and copper at US$2.95 per lb.