PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Dual-listed gold miner Gold One has announced a gold and uranium mineral resource and reserve estimate at the Cooke 4 shaft, in South Africa, which it acquired in August last year.

The Cooke 4 shaft was estimated to host a measured and indicated gold resource of some 3.25-milllion ounces and an inferred mineral resource of 5.43-million ounces, as well as a measured and indicated uranium resource of 11.1-million pounds and an inferred resource of 11-million pounds.

Gold One pointed out that the measured gold resource had decreased by 29% compared with the resource estimate undertaken in 2011, while the indicated resource increased by 40%. This was partly owing to the downgrading of the shaft pillar mineral resource to indicated category, and the consideration of a larger Middle Elsburg resource.

The measured and indicated uranium resource increased by 70% on the previous estimate, as a result of the increased Middle Elsburg resource, while inferred resource estimates decreased significantly, owing to the exclusion of inferred resources below the 2 500 m level.

“The declaration of the first mineral reserve in many years at Cooke 4 provides a solid underpin for the implementation of the uranium co-product strategy,” said Gold One CFO and acting CEO Christopher Chadwick.

He noted that the newly estimated reserve and resource at Cooke 4 could underpin a mine life of seven years. However, he added that the current reserves only considered a select portion of the estimated mineral resource, which meant that there was further potential to increase the mineral reserve at the Cooke 4 operation, depending on further technical feasibility studies and the conversion of inferred mineral resource to indicated and measured categories.

Chadwick noted that future mineral resource and reserve estimates would also be undertaken in conjunction with the contiguous Cooke 1 and 3 shafts, optimising shared underground infrastructure and ensuring the benefit of continuous geological modelling across mine boundaries.

At the end of December, the Cooke 1 and 3 underground operations had a mineral resource and reserve of some 8.93-million ounces of gold and 28-million pounds of uranium in the measured and indicated category, and a further 2.21-million ounces of gold and 3.12-million pounds of uranium in the inferred category.