VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – The TSX-listed stock of Canadian gold producer Alamos Gold on Monday rose nearly 12% after it reported positive exploration results on the 100%-owned La Yaqui and Cerro Pelon satellite deposits, located near the Mulatos mine, in Mexico.
The Toronto-headquartered company advised that the compliant resources at La Yaqui had grown by 93% to 536 000 oz, including the original 89 000 oz reserve, and that the average resource grade rose 5.6% to 1.5 g/t (undiluted). This compares well with the average Mulatos oxide reserve grade of about 0.9 g/t (diluted).
The original La Yaqui reserve pit remains on schedule to start production in mid-2017.
Exploration activities would continue at La Yaqui at an “aggressive pace” throughout the remainder of the year, Alamos advised. A total of eight rigs are currently drilling with a further 10 000 m planned by the end of the year.
The focus will be on infill drilling the inferred mineral resources, extension drilling on both zones and scout drilling over the remainder of the large alteration anomaly. Alamos noted that only 25% of the large alteration anomaly at La Yaqui had been explored to date.
The new resource, upgrading 149 000 oz to an indicated mineral resource and expanding the higher-grade inferred mineral resource to 298 000 oz, was upgraded and expanded from 27 201 m of drilling over eight months.
Meanwhile, Alamos advised that, owing to continued exploration success immediately next to the openpit plan at Cerro Pelon, it would delay the environmental impact assessment submission to ensure this upside is captured in the development of the project. This will probably move Cerro Pelon’s start-up date into 2018.
Alamos's TSX-listed stock closed Monday up 11.9% at C$11.47 apiece.