Listed Mining Companies
JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed gold explorer Laguna Resources on Wednesday reported that the maiden inferred joint ore reserve committee-compliant resource, at its Arqueros gold project, in Chile, was estimated to be around 780 000 gold equivalent ounces.
Laguna said in a statement that this represented a significant milestone in the exploration of Arqueros, and provided the company with a solid foundation to aggressively advance its exploration towards a two-million ounce target, and the future development of an open-cut mine.
A substantial drilling programme was now scheduled to start during this month. The focus of the drilling programme would be on further extending the existing resource base, as well as testing the poorly defined high-grade gold-bearing structures.
Laguna has now started an open-cut base case for the restart of mining, at a rate of between 100 000 oz and 120 000 oz a year of gold equivalent. This was based on an exploration target of between 20-million and 40-million tons, at a grade of between 1,5 g/t and 2 g/t gold equivalent, for between one-million and two-million ounces.
