Aim-listed exploration company African Consolidated Resources (ACR) declared last week that a 1.02-million-ounce ore reserve estimate of contained metal at its flagship Pickstone-Peerless gold project, in Zimbabwe, has been confirmed.

“A definitive feasibility study (DFS) for the exploitation of part of the oxide cap at the Pickstone-Peerless project was completed at the end of June 2013. This study demonstrated the ability to generate significant cash from what is essentially a prestrip to access the high-grade sulphide ore.

“The DFS demonstrates the potential of the oxides to generate cash flow of more than $50-million in six years and that the oxide cap can make a significant contribution to cofund the exploitation of the sulphides at Pickstone-Peerless,” says ACR executive chairperson Roy Tucker.

He adds that the Pickstone-Peerless project currently has a Joint Ore Reserves Committee (Jorc) resource of 62-million tons grading 1.8 g/t and containing 3.56-million ounces of gold, according to a prefeasibility study (PFS) released in December last year.

Included in this upgraded reserves and resources is an open- pit ore reserve of 16.6-million tons grading 1.9 g/t containing 1.02-million ounces of gold, which indicate mining oxide and sulphide ore to a depth of 250 m.

ACR notes that exploration consultancy company ExplorMine was retained as the appointed competent person under the 2012 Jorc code to compile and estimate the company’s upgraded resources.

The ExplorMine competent person’s report (CPR) points out that a soft boundary between the higher-grade inner zone and the lower-grade outer zone at Pickstone has been used and has resulted in a 2.2% increase in total mineral resources, compared with the same cutoff grades of the June 2013 CPR.

“The economic findings detailed in the PFS report and the Jorc ore-reserve estimate have resulted in the resource estimate being updated by ExplorMine to reflect the mineral resource estimate at a cutoff grade of 0.3 g/t for the Peerless and Pickstone openpits,” states Tucker.

ACR highlights that it has a strategy to decouple the plant from pit production. A three-month stockpile will be created prior to plant commissioning and more tons will initially be mined than what is required by the plant.

“This will enable the company to engineer the grade by drawing down from specific stockpile areas sorted according to grade. Also, this will ensure that the plant is presented with an average grade of about 5.0 g/t in the first eight years of operation,” concludes Tucker.