TSX Venture Exchange-listed Rusoro Mining has awarded a contract to Vancouver-based mining consultancy Micon International, to conduct a scoping study on the viability of a “significant” expansion at the company's Choco 10 gold mine and mill, in Venezuela.

Mico had also been awarded a mandate for a definitive feasibility study, which will be based on the parameters and assumptions produced in the scoping study.

The scoping study is expected to be completed during the third quarter of this year, while the feasibility study is expected to be completed towards the end of the first half of 2009, Rusoro said in a statement.

Rusoro bought the Choco 10 gold mine, from major Gold Fields last year.

The firm said in January that it had resolved production issues, which had made Choco 10 an operational headache for Gold Fields, and expected the mine to produce 120 000 oz of gold this year.

"The major motivating factors for acquiring the Choco 10 gold mine six months ago were based on our firm belief that we could achieve two significant goals,” Rusoro president George Salamis said in a statement on Thursday.

“The first goal was to immediately improve the existing gold production numbers, which has been accomplished, and the second was to, in the medium to long term, radically expand [the] gold production profile at the mine.”

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