Uruguay Mineral steps up drilling

Vancouver — Infill drilling by Uruguay Mineral Exploration (UME-V) at the Arenal deposit in Uruguay is demonstrating sufficient grade consistency to warrant construction of the initial pit. Startup is planned for late 2004.

Reverse-circulation and core drilling have covered a strike length of 350 metres of the Main zone, and to a depth of 250 metres downdip (130 metres vertical depth). The mineralized zone remains open in all directions.

Stepout drilling, outside the current pit design, delivered exceptional gold intercepts. Highlights include the following:

— hole 19 — 45.3 metres (from 82.8 metres) grading 6.47 grams gold per tonne;

— hole 21 — 2 metres (from 89.8 metres) grading 0.72 gram gold, plus 35.9 metres (starting at 111.7 metres) of 2.66 grams gold;

— hole 22 — 2 metres of core (from 82 metres) assayed 0.9 gram gold, followed by 28 metres (from 106 metres) of 4.59 grams gold;

— hole 23 — This hole, collared at same location as hole 22 but drilled at a steeper dip, intersected 57 metres (from 93.6 metres) of 7.16 grams gold.

The property is among the assets of Crystallex International (KRY-T) acquired by Uruguay Mineral in late 2003. Through this acquisition, Uruguay Mineral has consolidated the land holdings in the Minas de Corrales gold belt. The company now has 500 sq. km under title.

Arenal is in the Minas de Corrales goldfield, at the western end of the Isla Cristalina greenstone belt. Here, mineralization is generally associated with a highly sheared complex of Precambrian felsic intrusives and mafic volcanic-sedimentary greenstone assemblages.

Gold mineralization at Arenal is hosted in the east-west-trending San Gregorio shear zone. Deposits are known to occur in relation to intersections of the main shear with northwest-trending faults.

Uruguay Mineral also acquired the San Gregorio mine from Crystallex. The mine is nearing depletion of ore and has just over one year of reserves left.

The purchase cost to Uruguay Mineral was US$2 million, closure of a gold hedge position of US$2.76 million, and acceptance of US$2.3 million in debt. In return, the company acquired the San Gregorio plant, with an estimated replacement value of US$40 million and residual reserves of about 100,000 oz. gold (sufficient to settle outstanding debt).

Arenal has a measured resource of 1.5 million tonnes grading 2.96 grams gold per tonne. An additional 7.6 million tonnes of inferred resource grading 2.26 grams gold have been calculated.

The company was recently granted a 15-year mining lease by the Uruguayan government.

In addition its large Minas de Corrales holding, UME has several precious and base metals exploration projects throughout Uruguay, including a diamond project near the Brazilian border.

The company has 41.8 million shares outstanding, which were recently trading at $5.

Print

Be the first to comment on "Uruguay Mineral steps up drilling"

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published.


*


By continuing to browse you agree to our use of cookies. To learn more, click more information

Dear user, please be aware that we use cookies to help users navigate our website content and to help us understand how we can improve the user experience. If you have ideas for how we can improve our services, we’d love to hear from you. Click here to email us. By continuing to browse you agree to our use of cookies. Please see our Privacy & Cookie Usage Policy to learn more.

Close