Breakaway Resources, Red Back Mining, Endeavour Silver, Impact Minerals, Nayarit Gold
Breakaway Resources has entered into a farm-in and joint venture with BHP Billiton, whereby BHP can earn 70% of the silver-lead-zinc rights on Breakaway’s Altia project in the Cloncurry district of Queensland by spending A$10 million exploring the property over a period of five years. The agreement calls for a minimum expenditure of A$1 million in the first year, with up to 5,000 m of diamond drilling to begin at the end of the wet season in early 2010. The project currently hosts the Altia silver-lead-zinc deposit, with inferred resources of 5.78 million mt grading 40.3 g/mt silver, 3.96% lead, and 0.49% zinc. The deposit remains open both down dip and along strike. Work to date has encountered strengthening silver grades at depth and to the southwest. Downhole intersections include 19 m grading 286 g/mt silver.
The Altia deposit occurs within the Soldiers Cap formation, which also hosts BHP’s Cannington silver-lead-zinc mine, some 100 km to the south, and the Eloise copper-gold mine, 4 km to the north. The mineralization occurs within several parallel banded iron formations. The deposit and its associated host rocks are completely concealed at the surface by about 50 m of younger, flat-lying cover rocks and are associated with coincident linear magnetic and gravity anomalies occurring over a 2-km strike length. (www.breakawayresources.com.au)
Red Back Mining announced in mid-November 2009 that over a two-month period, exploration drilling at its Tasiast mine in Mauritania had added 890,000 oz of gold to measured and indicated resources, lifting total measured and indicated resources to 5.47 million oz. The increase was calculated based on 30,000
m of drilling since early September 2009 and cut-off grades of 0.2 g/mt gold for oxide material and 0.5 g/mt gold for fresh material. Drilling is ongoing with six rigs on site, and plans are in place to further accelerate the exploration program going into 2010. Having amassed more than 20,000 samples, Red Back said results from these samples plus ongoing drilling are expected to generate further additions to the rapidly increasing Tasiast resource base. (www.redbackmining.com)
Endeavour Silver reports that exploration drilling on its recently acquired Porvenir Cuatro property in the Guanacevi District, Durango, Mexico, continues to intersect high-grade silver-gold mineralization along the Santa Cruz vein system. The Porvenir Cuatro property is located 3 km northwest of Endeavour’s operating Porvenir mine. As of early November 2009, the newly discovered high-grade silver-gold zone had been outlined by 11 drill holes over a 200-m-long by 200-m-deep area and was still open along strike and down dip. Drilling highlights have included an intercept grading 727 g/mt silver and 1.51 g/mt gold over a 3.44-m true width, including an interval grading 1,040 g/mt silver and 2.25 g/mt gold over 2.21-m true width. (www.edrsilver.com)
Impact Minerals reports that a soil geochemistry program at its Lekobolo uranium prospect in Botswana has defined an area up to 16 km long and 7 km wide that contains elevated uranium-in-soil values. Within this area are at least six strongly anomalous areas that cover about 30 km2 and are prospective for uranium deposits hosted by Karoo rocks and younger calcrete. These areas have not been drilled. Selection of specific areas to be drilled was in progress as of mid-November 2009, with expectations that drilling would begin in December, weather permitting. Impact is progressing similar soil programs at four other priority areas within its prospecting licenses in Botswana, which cover 27,000 km2 of uranium prospective rocks. (www.impactminerals.com.au)
Nayarit Gold has reported positive metallurgical test results and a new NI 43-101 compliant resource estimate for its open pit-underground Orion gold-silver project in Nayarit state, Mexico. Test recoveries obtained by flotation and subsequent leaching of the flotation concentrate and tails returned overall recoveries of 88.7%–88.2% for gold and 82.1%–71.1% for silver. The company is examining optimization of these processes to determine the best processing economics, including increasing recoveries and reducing reagent consumption. Recoveries obtained in a bottle roll test of a low-grade sample were higher than anticipated, allowing the company to evaluate more of the open-pit potential at Orion.
SRK Consulting completed an independent resource estimate for the Orion project that shows an indicated mineral resource of 4.215 million mt, grading 1.33 g/mt gold and 111.60 g/mt silver, containing 432,000 gold equivalent oz. An additional 1.940 million mt grading 0.69 g/mt gold and 39.77 g/mt silver and containing 85,000 gold equivalent oz has been classified as inferred. The resource calculations were based on assay data from 56,298 m of drilling in 248 drill holes. (www.nayaritgold.com)
