Sona finding its gear in southern B.C.

A mistake at the lab turned out to be good news for Sona Resources (SYS-V).

The company reported that seven composite assay results from its 2010 drill program at its Elizabeth Gold deposit in B.C. have been revised after being submitted for re-assaying with check samples.

The most significant revision was seen in hole E1-069, which the lab had originally assayed at 4 metres grading 85.4 grams gold, but now says grades 77.9 grams gold over 5.3 metres.

In Toronto on March 30 – the day the correction was released – Sona shares moved up 4% or 4¢ to $1.18 on 29,000 shares traded.

Sona says the revisions don’t effect the recent resource estimate at Elizabeth as the results weren’t included in the calculation.

They will, however, go into an updated resource report, along with the results from its upcoming underground and surface exploration programs, which is due out in the fall of this year.

That upcoming drill program is set to start in April and will see underground drifting on its Southwest vein at Elizabeth.

The company built a new underground portal on the vein last December at the 2,300 metre level.

Sona says drilling will be done with an eye towards moving current inferred resources into the measured and indicated categories and adding tonnage by exploring the vein along strike and down dip.

Elizabeth is roughly 250-km northeast of Vancouver and has an inferred resource of 522,900 tonnes, grading 12.3 grams gold for 206,100 oz. of gold.

Formed in 1990, Sona has already operated a small-scale gold mine at its flagship property, the wholly owned Blackdome Gold Mine which sits 30-km north of Elizabeth.

Blackdome’s historic production totaled 225,000 oz. over four years from a head-grade of 20 grams per tonne.

The project currently hosts a deposit with an indicated resource of 144,500 tonnes, grading 11.29 grams for 52,600 oz. of gold with additional inferred resources of 90,600 tonnes, grading 8.79 grams gold. The site also has tailings with an inferred resource of 298,000 tonnes grading 1.47 grams gold for 14,145 oz. of gold.

Both Elizabeth and Blackdome are in close proximity to the historic Bralone Mine which produced over 4 million oz. of gold and sits roughly 15 km south of Elizabeth.

The company plans to bring Blackdome back into production by the third quarter of 2013, milling at ore at a rate of 200 tonnes per day for production of 24,000 oz. of gold per year with feed coming from both Blackdome and Elizabeth.

The capital cost of replacing the infrastructure at the site is estimated to be $80 million.

The long term plan is to expand the mill throughput to 600 tonnes per day so that it can turn out 70,000 oz. per year. .

A preliminary economic assessment done on the project last spring estimated cash costs of $686 per oz.