A 128,000-ft. drilling program has started on the Santa Rosa gold property of Greenstone Resources (TSE) and Boliden International in central Panama. The joint venture is held 51% by Boliden and 49% by Greenstone, which is operating the current exploration phase.
Initial drilling will focus on raising the project’s known proven and probable reserves above the current level of 12.5 million tons grading 0.061 oz. gold per ton, up to 20 million tons of similar grade.
President Ian Park said the reserve drilling program forms part of a larger US$1.7-million feasibility study now under way on the project’s main two deposits. The study is expected to provide data to design a 100,000 oz.-per-year gold mine by 1992.
Capital costs to build a 5,000- ton-per-day open pit, heap leach mining operation are estimated at US$25-30 million with production beginning in 1992.
Over the next several months, the main work will focus on areas around the existing two open pit deposits — Santa Rosa and Alto de la Mina — as well as on 14 regional targets to the east, south and west.
The second stage of exploration drilling will probe the 14 other stepout targets with combined potential for another 70 million tons of reserves outside the known deposits. These various other targets are associated with several rock types with high-grade gold mineralization in trenches and old underground workings.
Most of the new targets are found in the ring and radial fault complex near the rim of the main Santa Rosa volcanic crater. Only 3% of the rim structure has been drilled to date, although multiple occurrences of high-grade gold are known.
Shares of Greenstone, of which there are about 11 million issued and outstanding, have traded recently at $2.40 within a 52-week range of $1.70-6.75.
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