TomaGold and Iamgold have finalized an option agreement whereby Iamgold may earn a 50% interest in each of TomaGold’s Monster Lake, Winchester and Lac à l’Eau Jaune properties near the Chibougamau mining camp in northwestern Quebec for a total of $17.575 million, including $16 million in exploration work and $1.575 million in payments over five years.
Iamgold will act as the project operator with the support of TomaGold personnel during the acquisition period. Once Iamgold has acquired its 50% interest in the properties, the interests of TomaGold and Quinto Real Capital Corp. will be diluted proportionately such that TomaGold and Quinto hold interests of 45% and 5%, respectively, in the Monster Lake property.
Since 1984, more than 40,000 m of diamond drilling have been done along the 4-km-long Monster Lake mineralized corridor. In the winter of 2012, TomaGold drilled 16 holes for a total of 2,420 m on the Annie zone, which resulted in a major discovery of 237.6 g/mt gold over 5.7 m. In 2013, the company drilled 12 holes totaling 5,000 m on Zone 325. All the holes intersected the gold-bearing structure, and seven of the 12 holes returned values of more than 10 g/mt gold. The program also confirmed that the Zone 325 was 150-m long with a vertical depth of 330 m and that it was open at depth.
(www.tomagoldcorp.com)
B2Gold has reported additional high-grade drill intercepts from the Wolfshag zone at its Otjikoto gold project in Namibia. The company is currently constructing a mine on the project, with production scheduled to begin in the fourth quarter of 2014. The Wolfshag zone is located immediately to the east and northeast of the planned open pit and holds the potential for a higher-grade resource that could lead to future expansion in mine production and/or an increase in mine life.
B2Gold completed 20,920 m of drilling in 80 holes on the Wolfshag zone in 2013. Drilling concentrated on the northern 1 km of the 1.6-km-long zone. The best hole to date returned 16.2 m grading 9.39 g/mt gold, including 12.8 m of 11.27 g/mt gold. Numerous holes returned high-grade gold over significant thicknesses in a series of en-echelon stacked, shallow, easterly-dipping mineralized shoots. Many of the holes contain considerably higher grades of gold mineralization than the resource that provides the base for current mine development.
The Otjikoto gold project is located approximately 300 km north of Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, and is owned 90% by B2Gold and 10% by EVI Gold (Pty) Ltd., a Namibian empowerment group. Current planning calls for production of about 141,000 oz/y of gold during the first five years of mine operation at an average operating cash cost of $525/oz.
(www.b2gold.com)
GoldQuest Mining has reported an initial NI 43-101-compliant resource estimate for its 100%-owned Romero deposit in northwest Santo Domingo and an update of the estimate for the Romero South resource 950 m south of the Romero deposit. Combined indicated resources for the two deposits total 19.4 million mt grading 2.63 g/mt gold, 0.63% copper, 0.29% zinc, and 3.7 g/mt silver, containing 1.6 million oz of gold and 2.4 million oz of gold equivalent.
The deposits also contain a combined estimated inferred resource of 10 million mt grading 1.64 g/mt gold, 0.36% copper, 0.42% zinc, and 3.8 g/mt silver, containing 529,000 gold oz and 700 million gold equivalent oz.
The Romero deposit includes a coherent high-grade indicated core of 6.23 million mt grading 6.9 g/mt gold equivalent, containing 1.4 million gold equivalent oz, which is encouraging GoldQuest to consider beginning early economic studies to advance the project toward a mining decision. The company believes the deposit holds good potential for underground bulk mining.
Future studies are planned to examine the economics and technical aspects of mining at both deposits, as well as to test the mineral potential proximal to the resources.
(www.goldquestcorp.com)
