G-Resources: Martabe project update
Thursday, October 6 2011 - 12:22 PM WIB
Details
G-Resources continues to discover additional gold and silver mineralisation in and around the existing ore bodies and close to the Martabe plant site as a result of its ongoing, aggressive exploration program. Results have exceeded expectations with all four prospects drilled in July and August 2011 returning significant intersections of gold and silver.
Drilling activity during the first half of 2011 focused on adding to the Martabe Mineral Resource Estimate with five diamond drill rigs completing resource drill outs at Tor Uluala and Horas. The Tor Uluala Mineral Resource Estimate was released on 5 September 2011 and the Horas Mineral Resource Estimate is imminent.
After completing drilling for the 2011 Mineral Resource Estimate program, five diamond drill rigs were placed on exploration drill targets. Drilling commenced at four prospects: Purnama Dalam; Horas Barat; Tor Uluala Barat; and northern extensions to Tor Uluala. These prospects are all located within three kilometres of the Martabe process plant that is currently under construction.
While work is at an early stage, the four prospects are being explored with the aim of discovering additional resources for the Martabe operation.
Purnama Dalam Drilling Program
A diamond drilling program commenced at the Purnama Dalam zone underneath the Purnama Pit shell. The holes target the interpreted down plunge extensions of higher grade gold-silver shoots within the Purnama deposit. These shoots, which are seen by interpolating gold grades between drill holes, may represent a secondary structural or lithological control within the Purnama deposit.
Leapfrog software was used to define the shoots using a mathematical interpolation. However, the shoots are also readily observed in the Purnama Mineral Resource Estimate 3D block model. Modelling shows the shoots plunging as somewhat cylindrical shapes to the north-east in the plane of the main mineralised body.
The first hole into this zone, APSD1138, intersected silica-advanced argillic-sulphide alteration of moderate to strong intensity from 247 to 410 metres. This is associated with hydrothermal breccia in a volcanic breccia host rock and is interpreted as the down plunge extension of gold-silver shoots in the north of Purnama deposit. Results from this hole include:
? APSD1138: 8.6 metres @ 4.53 g/t gold, 58 g/t silver from 261.3 metres;
? APSD1138: 13.0 metres @ 2.73 g/t gold, 29 g/t silver from 325.0 metres.
The hole intersects the Purnama Mineral Resource Estimate block model at its deepest point, and the results confirm both the accuracy of the block model and extend its width. Refer to Figure 4 for the location of these intersections on section and their location relative to the Purnama Mineral Resource Estimate block model.
A second hole, APS1139, was stopped prematurely due to bad ground conditions. This hole was drilled to the side of the plunge extension of the shoot and intersected only a narrow zone of moderate to weak intensity silica alteration. Assay results are yet to be received.
Although these results are not conclusive, they are interpreted as confirmation of the existence of north-east oriented mineralised shoots below the existing limit of mineralisation in the Purnama geological model. Previous drilling at the Ramba Joring discovered epithermal alteration and gold-silver mineralisation at 700 metres below surface, and, while Purnama remains open at depth, the potential exists for substantial exploration upside.
Horas Barat Prospect
Horas Barat lies between the Horas deposit and the southern extension to the Barani deposit, three kilometres to the south west of the Martabe plant site. Exploration field-work was conducted at the Horas Barat prospect in the first half of 2011. The field-work initially aimed at defining the strike extent and surface geology of the Horas deposit, but extended westward when the potential for a new discovery was realised.
The first phase of work consisted of geological mapping and surface sampling by G-Resources? staff geologists. The mapping defined a 100 metre wide by 300 metre long zone of quartz breccia outcrop. Surface rock samples were taken with assays of up to 1.6 g/t gold. A program of four diamond drill holes was designed and drilling commenced in July. The holes, spaced 100 metres apart, cover a strike length of 400 metres.
All four drill holes intersected significant gold and silver mineralisation. The grades are significantly higher than previous results from Horas, and a check sampling and assay program of ? core confirmed the accuracy and validity of the Horas Barat results.
Best results from the four holes are:
? APSD1117: 9.5 metres @ 7.1 g/t gold, 42 g/t silver from 209.0 metres;
? APSD1123: 45.0 metres @ 1.55 g/t gold, 8 g/t silver from 13.0 metres;
? APSD1126: 11.0 metres @ 26.2 g/t gold, 23 g/t silver from 153.0 metres;
? APSD1135: 2.5 metres @ 1.95 g/t gold, 12 g/t silver from 152.3 metres.
Although neither the continuity nor orientation of the mineralized zone or zones are known yet, it is likely that these results represent either a new discovery or high grade extension to the known Horas deposit.
Mineralisation occurs in brecciated sandstone cut by crackle breccias and polymict breccias. The gold and silver host is probably silica-alunite-sulphide matrix. The mineralized intersections are rich in sulphide minerals including pyrite and copper minerals such as enargite. For example, drill hole APSD1126 assayed 2.27% copper and 11.6 g/t gold from 213.0 to 214.0 metres.
Further drilling is required to both confirm continuity in three dimensions, and establish the relationship between Horas and Horas Barat. This drilling will commence in the third quarter of 2012.
Tor Uluala Barat Prospect
In the first half of 2011, G-Resources? re-evaluation of existing data at the Tor Uluala Barat prospect located additional drilling targets. Three parallel, one to two kilometre long ridge-lines 300 to 900 metres west of Tor Uluala were identified. Surface rock sampling on these ridge-lines has returned results up to 20.9 g/t gold within zones of >0.5 g/t gold over one kilometre in length. The prospect center is 2.5 kilometres north-north west of the Martabe plant site.
Two of the three ridge-lines were tested with a four-hole drilling program and returned significant intersections.
The third most westerly ridge-line, tested in 2010 with two drill holes, was not targeted in this program.
The first ridge-line was tested with one drill hole. Drill hole APSD1134 targeted down dip extensions of intersections from drill hole ASPD089, drilled in a prior programme in 2000. Drill hole APSD089 returned the following positive results:
? 8.0 metres @ 1.4 g/t gold, 19 g/t silver from 41.0 metres, including 1 metre @ 1.64 g/t gold, 60 g/t silver;
? 13.0 metres @ 1.28 g/t gold, 12 g/t silver from 60.0 metres including 1 metre @ 3.98 g/t gold, 15 g/t silver;
? 5.0 metres @ 1.48 g/t gold, 53 g/t silver from 78.0 metres, including 1 metre @ 3.85 g/t gold, 103 g/t silver.
Drill hole APSD1134 intersected mineralized zones at depth, and results include:
? 11.9 metres @ 1.30 g/t gold, 20 g/t silver from 30.8 metres;
? 9.3 metres @ 3.36 g/t gold, 14 g/t silver from 62.1 metres.
These intersections confirm earlier drilling results and establish continuity of the mineralisation at depth. Surface rock sampling indicates the gold-bearing zone could be 300 metres long, trending north south along the ridge-line. The mineralisation displays good gold and silver grades, reasonably wide intersections, strong continuity on section between drill holes, and an extensive gold anomaly at surface.
The second ridge-line 500 to 600 metres west of Tor Uluala was tested with three drill holes: APSD1125, APSD1127 and APSD1130. Hole APSD1125 returned a best result of 37.5 metres @ 0.67 g/t gold, 0.6 g/t silver from surface.
Further drilling will be required to determine the orientation of mineralisation in three dimensions.
Northern extensions to the Tor Uluala deposit
Drilling for extensions of the Tor Uluala deposit commenced in July with four diamond drill holes completed by September. These results show the Tor Uluala deposit is continuous to the north with both oxide and sulphide mineralisation discovered.
Significant results include:
? APSD1131: 5.7 metres @ 0.8 g/t gold, 20 g/t silver from 8.9 metres;
? APSD1131: 11.2 metres @ 0.8 g/t gold, 66 g/t silver from 81.8 metres;
? APSD1136: 9.6 metres @ 0.9 g/t gold, 11 g/t silver from 70.5 metres;
? APSD1140: 11.7 metres @ 1.2 g/t gold, 14 g/t silver from 133.1 metres.
Drilling is advancing northwards at 50 metre section spacing to expand the existing Tor Uluala deposit. Results indicate that near-surface gold and silver mineralisation extends northwards in several mineralized zones. Geological mapping, geochemistry and geophysics suggest the deposit extends several hundred metres to the north. Drilling will continue moving northwards until the deposit is fully defined.
In the future, this drilling will likely be incorporated with the existing Tor Uluala resource. The current exploration program could therefore add additional low grade, near surface oxide and deeper sulphide material to the resource issued on 5 September 2011.
Other Exploration Programs
Exploration work continues throughout the Martabe project area. G-Resources is aggressively exploring sites both close to Martabe and elsewhere throughout the company?s 1,639 square kilometre COW area.
Recent work on the COW has focused on geological mapping, surface sampling and interpretation at four prospects that together represent a range of geological targets, namely:
? A sediment hosted gold target at the Baning prospect;
? An outcropping epithermal gold target at the Tango Papa prospect;
? A conceptual buried porphyry target based on inversion modeling of detailed aeromagnetic data at the Baning Bullseye prospect, 1km to the north east of Baning;
? A buried resistivity anomaly at the Baning Barat prospect 2km to the west of the Baning prospect.
Drilling commenced at the sediment hosted gold target at Baning in September. Drill pad preparation is nearing completion at Tango Papa and will commence on completion of the Baning program.
The presence of multiple, drill-ready exploration targets in the Martabe near-mine environment and COW allows G-Resources to implement an aggressive and highly efficient exploration program. The program aims to define additional resources for the Martabe operation within a short timeframe, while meeting or exceeding industry performance standards such as exploration cost per discovery ounce and drilling cost per metre.
About Martabe
The Martabe project is located on the western side of the Indonesian island of Sumatra in the Province of North Sumatra, in the Batangtoru sub-district.
The project is established under a sixth generation COW signed in April 1997, which defines all of the terms, conditions and obligations of both G-Resources and the Government of Indonesia for the life of the COW.
Martabe, with a resource base of 7.46 million ounces (Moz) gold and 72.60 Moz silver, is G-Resources Group?s core starter asset around which a globally competitive, Asia-Pacific focused gold company will be built. Already in construction, Martabe is expected to be in commissioning and commence production at the end of first quarter of 2012 at a rate of 250,000 oz/a of gold and 2-3 million oz/a of silver at an anticipated low cash cost of less than US$250/oz of gold.
G-Resources is seeking to rapidly grow production to more than one million ounces of gold annually through exploration of the large and highly prospective COW area and through acquisition of other quality gold assets. The Martabe project enjoys the strong support of the Indonesia Central, Provincial and Local Governments and the nearby communities of Batangtoru. (end of edited release)