Eldorado tables estimate for Kisladag gold project

With its 1999 drill program now complete, Eldorado Gold (ELD-T) has tabled an initial resource calculation for its wholly owned Kisladag project in western Turkey.

The measured and indicated resource is estimated at 42.8 million tonnes averaging 1.49 grams gold per tonne, based on a cutoff grade of 0.8 gram. This is equivalent to 2.05 million contained ounces.

The inferred portion of the resource is pegged at 31.1 million tonnes averaging 1.35 grams gold, or 1.35 million contained ounces.

“These results provide a well-defined, initial resource base to expand from,” says Eldorado President Paul Wright. “The company is confident that further drilling, designed to define the limits of Kisladag, will provide an opportunity to enhance the resource significantly.”

About 17% of the total resource is oxide material, the rest being a mixture of transitional sulphides. Mineralization is hosted in a medium-grained andesitic crystal tuff, intruded by a weakly mineralized micro-diorite stock measuring 250 metres in diameter.

Grade is highest in structurally controlled zones that strike east-west and northwest-southeast around the margins of the intrusive. A northeasterly trending post-mineral fault has been identified on the eastern side of the deposit, and this structure down-faults the main zone of mineralization.

The oxide material responded well to leach tests and achieved a gold recovery in excess of 95%, and leaching of the sulphide material produced gold recoveries in the range of 78-87%. Flotation work is ongoing.

In November, scoping studies and additional field work will get under way.

Results from 5,000 metres of drilling in July and August are highlighted in the accompanying table.