A recently completed drilling program on the Santa Fe copper-oxide project, 25 miles east of Hawthorne, Nev., confirms previous estimates of reserves.
Kookaburra Gold (VSE), owner of the property, drilled a total of 29 reverse circulation holes in the recent program with the primary objective of infill drilling within known deposit boundaries to upgrade the resource to reserve status.
The recent drilling also included a number of holes around the periphery of the known mineralization to determine the extent of the orebody. Preliminary estimates of reserves, based on previous work, both by Conoco in 1979 and Kookaburra in 1992, put the size of the deposit at about 16.1 million tons grading 0.55% copper.
Rennie Blair, president of Kookaburra, said he expected to complete a new estimate within a few weeks to bring reserves into at least a probable category.
Blair said the infill drilling also confirmed the presence of a high-grade zone containing several millions tons. The zone, which strikes east-west, is in the centre of the deposit which could form the basis for a starter pit. Kookaburra is now planning extensive column leach metallurgical testing to determine copper recoveries and acid consumption for a solvent extraction and electrowinning operation.
Acid-soluble copper assays indicate that more than 80% of the copper mineralization is potentially extractable by leaching using sulphuric acid. On completion of the metallurgical work, Kookaburra plans to begin a prefeasibility study including preliminary open-pit designs, grade schedules, capital and operating costs as well as financial analysis.
Blair does not expect the remaining prefeasibility work to cost more than $150,000 to complete and he noted that the company is in excellent financial shape with about $1.2 million in working capital.
Blair said the company is now reviewing plans to raise additional funding for work on the Chaucha copper project in Ecuador.
Kookaburra can earn up to a 65% interest in the project from AG Armeno Resources (VSE).
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