Banro ships gold plant to DRC, hits more gold at Namoya

Banro (BAA-T, BAA-X) says it is on schedule to finish building its flagship Twangiza gold mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in the fourth quarter of 2011, and a ship containing a reconditioned gold processing plant has already left Australia and is on its way to the port of Mombasa.

When the plant arrives in July, it will be transported by truck in 140 forty-foot containers to the Twangiza site and reassembled. (Banro bought the processing facility in 2009.) A second set of containers with components will be sent from South Africa.

In addition, the Toronto-based junior says it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Luhwindja community and a separate agreement with Twangiza artisanal miners.

Under the MOU, Banro’s charity, the Banro Foundation, will continue to invest in infrastructure projects including schools, health clinics, potable water, roads and bridges. The charity is also working on resettlement issues.

The agreement with the artisanal miners provides construction jobs for 875 people. Four hundred other artisanal miners will enroll in life and work skills training through local non-governmental organizations and Banro is funding a program that will send 200 former artisanal child miners to school.

The Twangiza project, which the company acquired in 1996, is along the 210-km soon-to-be producing Twangiza-Namoya gold belt in the DRC’s South Kivu and Maniema provinces. The property, 45 km southwest of Bukavu, consists of six exploitation permits covering 1,164 sq. km.

The deposit contains measured resources of 17.2 million tonnes grading 2.40 grams gold per tonne for 1.32 million oz. contained gold. In the indicated category, Twangiza has 90.3 million tonnes grading 1.50 grams gold for 4.28 million oz. gold. Inferred resources tally 8.2 million tonnes grading 1.7 grams gold for 400,000 oz. contained gold.

Twangiza is expected to go into production in 2011.

Also in the DRC, Banro has recently found two new gold zones at its Namoya project.

The new zones are in the southwest and northwest of the Namoya Summit prospect and have a strike length of 250 metres at the southwest zone and 200 metres at the northwest zone.

Trench sampling results from the southwest were highlighted by 4 metres grading 2.73 grams gold, 10 metres of 8.24 grams gold and 3 metres of 5.29 grams gold. Channel sampling results from the southwest included 17 metres of 6.9 grams gold, 9 metres at 5.69 grams gold and 8 metres at 4.21 grams gold.

Over in the northwest section, trench sampling returned highlights of 5 metres at 3.11 grams gold, 12 metres of 5.12 grams and 6 metres of 8.93 grams gold.

Banro says it wants to delineate near-surface resources that are within economic hauling distances of any future mine at Namoya. It is currently working on a feasibility study on the project.

The company says gold mineralization in the new zones is associated with quartz veins and stock-works, which trend northwest and southeast and dip shallowly to the northeast. The mineralization has a width of more than 10 metres in places.

An auger drill program is underway at both the southwest and northwest portions of Namoya Summit. Banro is looking to test bedrock and the strike continuity of the mineralized zones.

Assays from auger holes in the northwest returned highlights of 3 metres of 7.42 grams gold and 2.4 metres of 4.84 grams gold. A diamond- drilling program is scheduled for the third quarter.

The most recent resource estimate for Namoya was done in March 2009. It put 4.6 million tonnes of 2.5 grams gold into the measured category, 12.7 million tonnes of 1.8 grams gold into the indicated category and 8.4 million tonnes of 1.5 grams gold into the inferred.

But with the new zones the company believes those numbers will go up, making Namoya a likely candidate to become its next development project.