A newly formed joint venture between Romulus Resources (VSE) and Misty Mountain Gold (TSE) plans to re-examine the economic potential of the Cinola deposit in British Columbia.
Previous work on the project, situated in the Queen Charlotte Islands, focused on its bulk-tonnage potential.
A minable resource of 31.3 million tonnes grading 2.2 grams gold per tonne was outlined, at a stripping ratio of 1.7-to-1. This is potentially minable by open-pit methods.
Romulus, until now a dormant shell controlled by the Hunter-Dickinson group of companies, can earn a half interest in Cinola by spending up to $15 million on exploration and development within a staged period. To date, development of the deposit has been discouraged by environmental concerns over potential acid rock drainage and by low metallurgical recoveries. Romulus believes these problems can be overcome by a small-scale, high-grade operation.
The gold mineralization occurs both in a disseminated, low-grade form and as higher-grade vein-style mineralization. Lowering the cutoff grade in the resource estimate to 3 grams gold yields a figure of 5 million tonnes grading 6.8 grams.
Metallurgical testing on the low-grade material yielded recoveries of less than 80%, while work on higher-grade samples returned recoveries in excess of 90%.
Romulus plans to begin large-diametre drilling in 1995 in an effort to delineate a high-grade gold reserve and collect material for metallurgical testing.
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