Drilling will enable
This season’s program, budgeted at US$725,000, will include 23 diamond core holes totalling 4,500 metres.
The Gokgoz Tepe zone remains open along strike to the east and west, as well as at depth. Drilling, as well as trenching, will also be conducted on other targets.
Previous work has identified a 1,000-by-600-metre gold zone coincident with strong geophysical and geochemical anomalies. Mineralization is associated with disseminated sulphides and quartz pyritic veining in chloritic and argillically altered andesite.
Previous results ranged from 0.9 to 1.77 grams gold per tonne over entire core lengths, down to depths of 250 metres. A central zone, measuring 200 by 400 metres, returned high-grade intersections averaging 1.6 grams over entire hole lengths.
Lakefield Research has been retained to perform metallurgical tests and assess gold recovery methods, whereas Micon International will verify resource estimations.
The drill program will likely conclude by October, following which a prefeasibility will commence.
Meanwhile, Eldorado has increased its overall gold projections for 1999 to 190,000 oz. at a cash cost of US$202 per oz.
Ongoing development at the Sao Bento mine in Brazil has unexpectedly cut a separate mineralized structure 330 metres from the main orebody. The vein consists mainly of quartz with 1-3% sulphides (stibnite, arsenopyrite, pyrhotite and minor pyrite), and occupies a shear zone parallel to the orebody. The structure, which averages 8.4 grams over 1.3 metres, has been developed on level 23 for about 30 metres. Drilling will establish the continuity of this new zone along strike and dip.
Sao Bento’s underground workings are being explored and developed in a program budgeted at US$1.5 million, the objective being to boost proven and probable reserves to 1 million oz. Currently, the figure stands at 2.5 million tonnes averaging 9.18 grams gold per tonne, equivalent to 743,750 contained ounces. The total resource is about 4.5 million tonnes of 10.85 grams gold, or 1.6 million contained ounces.
Highlights from the six holes completed to date are as follows (all intersections are reported as true widths):
- hole 1 intersected 1.88 metres averaging 18.69 grams gold;
- hole 2 cut 4.47 metres of 9.84 grams gold;
- hole 3 cut 3.79 metres of 10.04 grams gold;
- hole 4 cut 2.31 metres of 8.21 grams gold;
- hole 5 cut 1.19 metres of 10.14 grams gold; and
- hole 6 cut 1.36 metres of 9.6 grams gold.
The mine is expected to produce 125,000 oz. gold at a cash cost of US$185 per oz. (By comparison, the company’s La Colorada mine in Mexico is projected to turn out 65,000 oz. at US$235 per oz.)
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