International Antam Resources announces Cikidang reserve estimate
Thursday, July 19 2001 - 03:31 PM WIB
According to the company?s release, Snowden has endorsed the estimates based on the Canadian National Instrument 43-101 ``Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects'' as well as the ``Australasian Code for Reporting Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves'' (the JORC Code).
The Cikidang mine is located within a 428-hectare exploitation area in West Java, Indonesia. The project area contains 5 mineralized zones: the Cikidang, Cibodas, West, Middle and East veins.
This deposit is a gold and silver enriched epithermal quartz vein that is hosted along a steep west dipping fault structure that strikes northeast and has a total length in excess of 1,200 metres. The Company has been mining this deposit since 1997 and has produced a total of 31,615 ounces of gold and 136,676 ounces of silver. The reserve estimate has been adjusted to reflect this previous production.
According to the company, Snowden has estimated the in-situ resource, classified as measured and indicated according to the JORC Code, at 353,200 tons grading 11.4 g/t gold and 58.1 g/t silver (no cut-off grade and upper grade cutting value) and 286,300 tons grading 13.5 g/t gold and 68.4 g/t silver (4 g/t cut-off and upper grade cutting value).
This Resource has been converted to a proven and probable reserve by applying project parameters and economics. The diluted mineable proven and probable Cikidang reserve is 189,110 tons grading 14.3-g/t gold and 79.6 g/t silver
?This Reserve equates to 87,316 contained ounces of gold and 485,645 contained ounces of silver using a cut-off grade of 8-g/t gold. All figures exclude the Bukit IV area that has been disturbed by illegal miner activities,? said the company?s statement.
Under current operating parameters the reserve provides a mine life of 7.8 years at an average cash operating cost of US $73 per tonne or US $194 per ounce gold equivalent. Implementation of certain operating efficiencies recommended by Snowden are expected to reduce the average cash operating cost to an estimated US $61 per tonne or US $151 per ounce gold equivalent, but would shorten the mine life slightly to 5.3 years. Refined ounces of gold equivalent would increase from 80,877 in the current case to 83,958 ounces gold equivalent in the optimized case. Cost estimations and economic analyses were based on gold and silver prices of US $260 and US $4.50 per ounce respectively, and an exchange rate of US $1 (equals) Rupiah 11,000.
Snowden has estimated a capital requirement of approximately US $900,000 for equipment, tailings pond expansion and development costs to extract the remaining reserve.
International Antam Resources Ltd., which is 81.9 percent controlled by Indonesian state miner PT Aneka Tambang Tbk, is a gold and silver producer carrying on mining and mineral exploration in Indonesia. (alex)