Lundin Mining has announced initial proven and probable mineral reserves for two recently discovered orebodies at its Candelaria mine in northern Chile. The orebodies, known as Susana and Damiana, are located immediately south of and below the current open pit.
Reserves in the two orebodies have been split between open-pit and underground. Open-pit reserves total 27.9 million mt at grades of 0.68% copper, 0.16 g/mt gold, and 2.31 g/mt silver. Underground reserves total 14.9 million mt at average grades of more than 1.0% copper. The increased reserves are expected to result in approximately three years of additional mine life at Candelaria.
Lundin will access the new underground reserves from existing and new portals from the open pit.
Lundin president and CEO Paul Conibear commented, “We are very pleased that in a short amount of time we have been able to deliver meaningful additions to the mineral reserves at Candelaria. With ten drills currently active on step-out drilling across the mine’s five different underground orebodies, we continue our aggressive 2015 exploration program, the results of which will be included in our third-quarter corporate reserve and resource update. These results and efforts from ongoing mine planning will form the basis of our optimized Candelaria district mine plan, which we expect to release in the third quarter of this year.”
Impact Minerals reports that the rare platinum group metals (PGMs) osmium, iridium, rhodium, and ruthenium have been discovered along with copper-nickel-platinum-palladium-gold mineralization at its 87%-owned Broken Hill joint-venture project in New South Wales, Australia. The discoveries were found in the project’s Red Hill deposit just 20 km east of the historic Broken Hill silver-lead-zinc mine.
Red Hill was mined for copper between 1906 and 1937 both at surface and underground from a vertical shaft to a depth of 36 m.
Impact reports its Red Hill assays as 7 PGMs (combining platinum, palladium, gold, osmium, iridium, rhodium, and ruthenium), copper and nickel. Drill intercepts have included 5.1 m grading 11 g/mt 7 PGMs, 1.9% copper, and 0.9% nickel, and 4.2 m grading 11.8 g/mt 7 PGMs, 2.6% copper, and 0.5% nickel. Native gold was also identified for the first time in drill core during recently completed petrographic work.
Follow-up drill holes are required to test the mineralization along trend and at depth. Work to date indicates that mineralization may increase in width and grade with depth and is in part coincident with an induced polarization chargeability anomaly identified in a ground geophysical survey.
Columbus Gold plans to initiate a 64,000-m exploration drilling program in 250 holes at its Eastside gold project 32 km west of Tonopah, Nevada upon receipt of final project permits in the second quarter of 2015. Drilling will begin with two drills in May or June and increase to three drills in the fourth quarter of the year. The company is targeting completion of 45,000 m of drilling in 185 holes by the end of 2015.
The “Original Target” at the Eastside project hosts a large area of shallow oxide gold mineralization still open to the south that measures about 1,600 m long and up to 600 m wide. The operating area being permitted for 2015 and 2016 drilling totals 248 ha and includes planned construction of 18 km of new drill roads and 175 to 200 dedicated drill pads suitable for drilling of multiple holes from each pad.
The Eastside project is located 9.7 km north of paved highway U.S. 95, the main road route from Las Vegas to Reno. A good gravel road from the highway and a major power transmission line pass through the claim block. The current drilling area is on the east flank of the Monte Cristo range, and a portion of the claim block extends well into the adjacent flats, which would provide excellent operating sites.
