Gran Colombia Gold (GCM-T) has boosted the resources at its Marmato gold project in Colombia, although it cost a bit of grade to do so.
The company says measured and indicated resources stand at 409.7 million tonnes grading 0.9 gram gold and 4.87 grams silver per tonne, for 11.8 million oz. gold and 80.3 million oz. silver. The new numbers are an 18% and 26% increase in gold and silver ounces, compared to the previous resource estimate released last September.
The project has additional inferred resources of 79.1 million tonnes grading 1.02 grams gold and 3.71 grams silver, for 2.6 million oz. gold and 9.4 million oz. silver.
Gran Colombia has boosted gold resources by 2 million oz., but it has done so at the cost of the gold grade.
The previous resource estimate outlined a resource with an average grade of 1 gram gold, while the current one has an average grade of 0.9 gram gold. The 10% drop came largely added, lower-grade tonnage being counted as resource thanks to higher gold prices. Where the former resource calculation used a gold price of US$1,200 per oz., the current one uses US$1,400 per oz.
Other metrics used in the calculation included a cut-off grade of 0.3 gram gold and gold recoveries of 88%.
And while Gran Colombia has already outlined a resource large enough to rank the project in the top 2% worldwide in terms of total ounces, the company thinks there is more to be found.
Additional tonnage is expected to come from deeper mineralization, which is hinted at in a subset to the latest results.
The outlined resources occur in a potential open pit, but Gran Colombia has begun to define resources below the pit shell, as well.
The deeper zone has an indicated resource of 300,000 tonnes grading 2.05 grams gold and 14.26 grams silver for 17,000 oz. gold and 118,000 oz. silver, and 6.7 million tonnes grading 2.62 grams gold and 4.41 grams silver for 563,000 oz. gold and 947,000 oz. silver.
The deeper ounces are being considered as underground resources, but the company points out that they could also be mined using open-pit methods.
On June 21 — the day the news was released — the company’s shares were off 2% to 32.5¢, on 515,130 shares traded.
Be the first to comment on "Gran Colombia builds up Marmato"