TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Romarco Minerals on Tuesday announced a 29% boost in measured and indicated resources at its Haile gold project in South Carolina, with the number topping the four-million ounce mark.

And with permitting anticipated at the end of the year, the company will be “aggressively” doing further exploration drilling in 2012, to allow for production levels greater than the 150 000 oz/y that a 2010 feasibility study anticipated.

“The numbers that we put out today do provide a good solid foundation to move forward on an expansion in throughput,” Romarco CEO Diane Garrett said in an interview.

The company’s focus this year, while progressing the permitting process, will be to drill out the deeper underground targets at Haile, and it may spend around $20-million on exploration in 2012, she added.

Proving up additional resources in the underground material could allow Romarco to consider expanding the mill from 7 000 t/d to 10 000 t/d or more.

“We’ve got a whole bunch of possibilities that can increase the production rate from a combination of openpit and underground,” Garrett said.

The company earlier announced the total Haile gold resources stood at just over four-million ounces in the measured and indicated categories, not counting the 800 000 oz of inferred resources.

While the measured and indicated number jumped 29%, the inferred resources shrunk by one-quarter, as some of the ounces were upgraded into the higher-confidence measured and indicated categories.

This was also a function of TSX-listed Romarco having focused on infill and condemnation drilling as it prepared to start construction on the mine last year, before the US government decided to carry out a more thorough environment review, which pushed construction start back to early 2013.

The company had locked in many of the costs associated with the 2010 estimated $280-million capital outlay, and only saw a potential increase of around 11% currently, Garrett said.
 

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