Northgate Minerals (ngx-t, nxg-n) has boosted its indicated resource tonnes by 18% and its contained gold and copper by 10% and 9%, respectively, at its Kemess underground project in north-central British Columbia.
Indicated resources now stand at 136.5 million tonnes for 2.6 million oz. gold, 860.6 million lbs. copper, and 9.2 million oz. silver at a $15 net smelter return cutoff.
The earlier resource estimate of May 2010 put resources at 121.1 million tonnes for 2.3 million oz. gold and 819 million lbs. copper.
Northgate also identified a 10.3-million-tonne, high-grade portion of the overall resource containing 450,000 oz. gold, 119 million lbs. copper, and 1.03 million oz. silver grading 1.35 grams gold per tonne, 0.52% copper, and 3.09 grams silver per tonne.
Management plans to file a preliminary assessment in the third quarter of this year.
The Kemess underground project is 5 km north of the Kemess South mine and milling complex.
The 2010 infill diamond drill program was designed to increase confidence in the grade distribution, location and geotechnical characteristics of a target area containing about 70 million tonnes of mineralization that had been identified as potentially mineable using low-cost bulk-underground mining methods. The target area in the eastern portion of the Kemess North deposit is about 300-600 metres below surface.
The 2011 resource estimate was based on 146 drill holes, and the infill drill program reported some of the highest grade intercepts on the Kemess property.
Northgate says the highest-grade intercepts came “from a continuous zone measuring 350 metres by 180 metres by 90 metres, adjacent to two faults in the northeast corner of the deposit.”
“There are obvious economic
benefits of having 450,000 oz. of gold,
119 million lbs. of copper and 1.03 million oz. of silver contained within a small tonnage that could be scheduled for mining early on in the mine-life to provide higher cash flow in the early years and a better payback,” the company stated in a release.
At presstime in Toronto, Northgate was trading at $2.82 per share. Over the last 52 weeks, it has traded between a low of $2.42 per share (Jan. 25, 2011) and a high of $3.62 (Sept. 21, 2010).
The company has 291.9 million shares outstanding.
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