Over the last several years, Centamin Egypt (CEE-T, CEY-L) says it has clocked an average discovery rate of about 500,000 oz. gold per quarter — not bad for a company focused entirely on Egypt, a country about the same size as the states of Texas and California combined.
Additional assay results from about 33,400 metres of drilling have upgraded Centamin’s resource estimate on its Sukari gold project, located on an imposing ridge about 23 km west of the coastal town of Marsa Alam..
Measured and indicated resources have grown about 7% or by 699,000 oz. to 10.99 million oz. gold, while inferred resources have expanded by about 2% or 74,000 oz. to 3.5 million oz. gold.
Sukari’s measured and indicated resource represents about 76% of the company’s global resource, Centamin says.
In Toronto the updated resource estimate sent Centamin’s shares up 2¢ or 0.83% to $2.44 per share on 4.1 million shares traded. The company has traded in a 52-week range of $1.33-$2.63 per share and has 1 million shares outstanding.
Sukari consists of four primary zones that contain varying degrees of gold: Amun, Ra, Gazelle and Pharaoh. The open pit is based on the Main and Hapi zones, which have been drilled extensively in the Amun and Ra/Gazelle areas revealing various high-grade zones.
High-grade intersections included in the latest resource estimate were 156 metres grading 2.07 grams gold per tonne (Hapi zone), 24 metres at 3.19 grams gold from 311 metres (Pharaoh zone), and 13 metres at 4.06 grams gold from 600 metres (Pharaoh zone).
Drilling shows the high-grade Hapi and related zones extend from the far south Amun zone north to the area of current drilling in the Ra and Pharaoh zones. These zones, along the 2.5 km strike length of the Sukari Hill, are the target of current infill and extension drilling with eight diamond coring rigs.
“The drilling continues to confirm the consistency and scale of the Sukari orebody and places it firmly on the map as one of the major gold discoveries to come into production in recent times,” Josef El-Raghy, the company’s 38-year-old chairman, said in a statement.
According to the company’s website, the term Sukari is believed to stem from the Arabic word for “sweet” because of the quartz’s physical similarity to sugar.
The company states that the Sukari gold project is expected to mine 142 million tonnes grading 1.4 grams gold per tonne and produce 6.4 million oz. gold.
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