JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – A reverse circulation drilling programme at East Africa-focused Shanta Gold’s New Luika project, in southwest Tanzania, has resulted in a 46% increase in the Elizabeth Hill tenement’s resource to 128 000 oz.
“Upgrading the Elizabeth Hill prospect is the first of a number of programmes aimed at improving our understanding of the true value of New Luika gold mine resources.
“We will now go about determining how best Elizabeth Hill fits into the life-of-mine (LoM) plan, the base case of which we are scheduled to release at the end of this month,” CEO Toby Bradbury said on Thursday.
Additional exploration was also ongoing in the tenements adjacent and close to the New Luika mining licence, offering the potential for additional medium-term resources.
Meanwhile, with progressive process plant upgrades at New Luika enabling the company to increase monthly ore tonnage throughput, the required head grade at the mine had decreased.
The company was, therefore, in a position to exploit lower-grade satellite deposits within the tenement that had been identified during earlier drilling phases.
Shanta believed low-to-medium grade gold ore from satellite deposits could be blended with high-grade ore from Shanta's Bauhinia Creek pit to ensure steady plant feed grades and optimise gold recoveries.
“It is envisaged that this may have a positive effect on the longer-term sustainability of the operations,” Bradbury held.
Production and costs had, meanwhile, been been maintained at budgeted levels and remained on track to meet full year guidance of between 72 000 oz and 77 000 oz at all-in sustaining costs of between $850/oz and $900/oz.