Crescent Gold mining operations to commence from Apollo Deposit with maiden Reserve
Top ten Australian listed gold producer Crescent Gold (ASX: CRE, TSX: CRA, FFT: CRE5) has achieved a maiden probable gold reserve of 54,000 ounces near surface at its newly acquired Apollo Deposit in Laverton, Western Australia.
The new reserve milestone is contained in an upgraded JORC Measured, Indicated and Inferred ounce resource upgrade of 2.47 million tonnes for a contained 179,000 ounces at an average grade of 2.2 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, using a 0.8 g/t cut off.
Importantly, all of this reserve is located within 75 metres from surface and extractable by open pit mining methods. First mining is scheduled to commence in the September quarter 2011, subject to approvals.
The Reserve represents a 59% increase in ounces in JORC Resource for the Apollo deposit, with Indicated Metallurgical Recoveries of 94%.
The company is planning to commence Reserve definition work immediately on the nearby Eclipse and Calypso deposits.
New drilling results and resource modelling had confirmed the probable gold reserve of 770,000 tonnes and at average grade of 2.2 grams per tonne gold (g/t gold) at the deposit, less than 10 kilometres southwest of Laverton.
Crescent Gold acquired the project last year from former owners, Barrick Gold and (TSE: ABX) Carbon Energy (ASX: CNX).
Significantly, the deposit is the most western deposit yet identified for mining by Crescent at Laverton and will supplement the company’s existing gold production from a number of Laverton pits, including Craiggiemore, Mary Mac South and North, Fish, and Pieces of Eight, all located to the east, northeast and southeast of Apollo.
The resource upgrade, including the maiden Reserve estimate, follows more than 10,500 metres of reverse circulation (RC) drilling and 604 metres of diamond core drilling, undertaken across the acquired western tenements by Crescent, since acquisition, between mid 2010 and the end of the March quarter this year.
Permitting of the Apollo deposit with WA’s Department of Mines and Petroleum is now underway. Waste characterisation studies have been completed, and other studies advanced.
The Apollo deposit is situated on a major shear system that hosts Crescent's Emerald and Aurora resources located 1 km to the south and north respectively of Apollo, the Eclipse resource 250m east, and the Calypso resource 6.5 km to the north of Apollo.
On May 30 Crescent Gold received strong support from the investment community for the company's A$8.84 million capital raising, which will help further develop the Laverton operations.
Crescent plans to commence reserve definition work during June on the Eclipse and Calypso deposits, both north of Apollo, and anticipates processing the ore from Apollo at the nearby Granny Smith plant where the company has an ore purchase agreement with Barrick Gold Corporation.
Earlier in the month Crescent announced that the company was on track to beat quarterly gold production forecasts through the Barrick Gold Granny Smith gold processing mill (BGSM).
In the first 21 days using BGSM, Crescent recovered 11,929 ounces of gold, which kicked off in April, therefore putting the company on track to exceed forecast gold production of 22,000 ounces for the June quarter.
Under the ore purchase agreement with Barrick, Crescent transports ore to BGSM for processing in a 50 day processing cycle per quarter, with the processing mill strategically located in the Laverton region of Western Australia
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