Neo Alliance pours gold from trial mining

Vancouver — Aspiring junior gold producer Neo Alliance Minerals (NAM-V) recently poured its first bullion from trial mining operations at the Majiahe project in Gansu province, China.

In preparation for scoping and prefeasibility studies, the test round consisted of extracting ore from three small open pits at the project and stacking the material on a pair of heap-leach pads with a 30,000-tonne capacity. The company has received mining permits from the Gansu province Department of Lands and Resources.

Gold mineralization at Majiahe occurs in multiple phases of quartz veins within an east-west-trending shear structure hosted in a sedimentary suite of rocks. The deposit hosts an inferred resource of 3.3 million tonnes averaging 1.34 grams gold per tonne for about 144,000 contained ounces gold. The resource is contained within five mineralized faults or shears with an average thickness of almost 12 metres, and remains open along strike and at depth.

Exploration on the 4.2-sq.-km mining licence area has identified two additional mineralized shear structures, bringing the total to eight.

The company has yet to determine the scale of the operation at Majiahe and is looking to increase the resource through drilling and adit development on the new mineralized zones.

On the verge of becoming a small-scale gold producer, Neo Alliance, which dubs itself a “Western Chinese mining company,” looks to leverage its in-country experience to secure additional projects with near-term production potential. In describing mine development in the Asian giant, company director of mining Tom Tang says, “I now truly experience how China has become the world’s factory — low-cost and skilled labour, well-developed supply chain for sourcing raw materials and production equipment and the steadfast attitude to have a better life through hard work of the local Chinese.”

Neo Alliance, which was listed on the TSX Venture Exchange earlier this year, formed when its Chinese mineral assets were placed into Capital Pool company Heartwood Capital as a qualifying transaction. It has 32.6 million shares outstanding, giving the company a $13-million market capitalization with its recent 40 trading level.