PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Australian gold miner Evolution Mining said on Wednesday that it would more than double its exploration push in 2015, compared with the exploration undertaken in 2014.
The miner said about 80 000 m would be drilled at the company’s exploration properties within the next year, up from the 31 875 m drilled in 2014.
“We remain confident in the long-term potential of our mines and are excited about the exploration work focused on transformational discovery,” said Evolution executive chairperson Jake Klein.
Evolution’s group ore reserves were currently estimated at 52-million tonnes, grading 1.6 g/t gold equivalent, for 2.62-million ounces of gold. This was a decrease of about 0.95-million ounces compared with a 2012 estimate, with the decline as a result of depletion by mining and the use of more conservative economic parameters.
The main changes in the ore reserve were observed at the Edna May project, in Western Australia, and Pajingo, in Queensland, where the resource category of mineralisation peripheral to the main orebodies has been downgraded, pending additional drilling and geological modelling.
Evolution noted that current infill drilling programmes to convert the mineral resource to ore reserves were focused on increasing the confidence in each resource category, and the company was confident that both resources and reserves would be added to the group inventory.
Meanwhile, group resource was estimated at 107-million tonnes, grading 1.7 g/t gold equivalent for 5.7-million ounces. This was a decrease of some 1.99-million ounces, accounting for depletion in mining and a more stringent application of economic constraints appropriate to the types of individual orebodies.
“Evolution has taken a more conservative view of its estimation of resources and reserves, which is appropriate for the current gold price environment,” Klein said on Wednesday.
“This approach has meant that some mineralisation previously included in resource and reserve estimates has now been excluded largely due to more conservative parameters being applied to the modelling approach.”
Klein said that Evolution did not anticipate that these changes would have any effect on the company’s production profile.