Alamos kicks of drilling program at Mulatos

Vancouver — With its eye on defining more high-grade near-surface mineralization Alamos Minerals (AAS-V) has commenced a drill program targeting the Estrella pit of the Mulatos deposit, situated 220 km east of Hermosillo, Mexico.

The Estrella zone represents the higher grade core of the Mulatos deposit and contains 11.5 million tonnes grading 3.16 grams gold per tonne, or 1.16 million oz. contained gold. This is based on a 2.0 grams gold per tonne cut-off grade. Former owners, Placer Dome (PDG-T) and Kennecott, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto (RTP-N), spent in excess of $50 million exploring the property which cumulated in a 1997 feasibility study. The study pegged the measured and indicated resource at 68.3 million tonnes grading 1.57 grams gold per tonne using a cutoff grade of 0.8 gram. The resource was defined by 511 drill holes and 994 samples from underground workings.

Alamos hopes to increase the grade of the known resource within the Estrella zone. To this end the current drilling campaign will consist of 126 vertical holes varying from 18-to-40 metres in depth which will be drilled on a 12-metre grid spacing. This will subsequently be increased to a 6-metre spacing if results if results warrant. Samples will be sent to the Bondar Clegg laboratory in Hermosillo for initial preparation and then forwarded to Bondar’s lab in Vancouver for fire assay.

Alamos states that the close spaced drilling is required to accurately estimate the amount of contained gold that will be mined and stacked on a test leach pad. A bulk heap leach test will follow the drill program as part of a feasibility study. The junior is currently acquiring permits to mine crush and heap-leach 50,000 tonnes of ore. Mineralization at Mulatos is hosted in a large, high-sulphidation gold system that is stratabound in felsic volcanoclastics and porphyritic flows.

The Mulatos deposit is situated within the 15,000-hectare Salamandra property which is currently owned by National Gold (NGT-V). Alamos stands to earn a 50% interest in the property by spending $2.4 million within a year of the agreement (announced in late October). National Gold is entitled to a payment of $2 million should the property enter production. The Albert Matter-led junior acquired the Salamandra property late last year from Placer and Kennecott Minerals in a $10.5-million deal.

Alamos has about 15.6 million shares fully diluted and has recently announced a non-brokered private placement consisting of 6 million units at a price of $0.15 per unit. Each unit consists of one common share and one warrant. Each warrant entitles the owner to purchase an additional Alamos common share at $0.20, for nine months from the closing date. The net proceeds of the private placement financing will be used on the Salamandra property.