Intrepid starts E. Java new prospect drilling program
Thursday, April 28 2011 - 07:59 AM WIB
Australian firm Intrepid Mines Limited said on Thursday that the diamond drilling program has commenced at Candrian prospect, which is located approximately 2 kilometres east of Tumpangpitu in Tujuh Bukit gold project, East Java.
The area is in the area between Tumpangpitu, Katak and Gunung Manis areas. The prospect exhibits coincident geological, geochemical and geophysical features consistent with high sulphidation and porphyry systems, the company said.
A 10-hole diamond drilling program has been approved. To date 2 holes have been completed. It is expected that assay results will be released in the coming months, it said.
During Jan-March period, the company?s main focus was drilling at Tumpangpitu prospect. There are currently six drill rigs operational on the Timpngpitu prospect ? five drilling deep porphyry holes and one drilling oxide holes. One rig is operational on the Candarian porphyry prospect.
The seven rigs completed a total of 8,916 meters of drilling in the Jan-March quarter.
The 17-hole, 3,250 m, diamond drill program at the Gunung Manis prospect has been delayed while access issues are being progressed. Gunung Manis is a low- to intermediate-sulphidation epithermal gold-silver system located approximately 4 km east of Tumpangpitu.
The company has announced Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) for a potential heap leach, open pit gold mine on the oxide resource of the Tumpangpitu area. The PEA was prepared by Kappes Cassiday, of Reno, Nevada, based upon column leach and other metallurgical tests performed at their laboratory.
The heap leach PEA is based on the Company?s December 2010 resource estimate of the near surface oxide resource at Tujuh Bukit. Significantly, the PEA, based on conservative assumptions, demonstrated a life of project annual average production of 143,000 recovered ounces of gold for 9 years at a cash cost of US$376 per ounce, net of silver credits at US$16.50 per ounce.
On 31 January 2011, the company reported an updated Inferred Resource estimate of 130 million tonnes at 0.55 g/t gold and 18 g/t silver above a 0.2 g/t gold cut-off, for 2.4 million ounces of contained gold and 80 million ounces of contained silver within the combined oxide zones of the Tumpangpitu area. (romel)