Kingsrose updates S. Sumatra gold/silver project
Friday, April 30 2010 - 05:14 AM WIB
WAY LINGGO PROJECT
Kingsrose focussed efforts during the March quarter 2010 on preparing its Way Linggo high grade gold/silver project in Southern Sumatra for production scheduled before the end of the next quarter.
Underground mining focussed on development of sublevels within the A and B North Vein ore bodies, as well sinking the inclined shaft to planned levels below the Main Haulage Level. The power station was completed and commissioned and process plant construction progressed with plant commissioning expected to start before the end of May.
Exploration activities continued with diamond drilling extending the known strike of the North Vein Fracture Zone to the north of the mine and confirming high level epithermal vein systems to the south.
Plant Construction
Construction of the 400 tonnes per day Merrill-Crowe processing plant is well advanced. However some delays have been experienced due to the extended monsoon season and delays in shipping specialist parts. Notwithstanding this, plant commissioning is expected to begin before the end May and full production before the end of the second quarter. The power station has been fully commissioned.
All major concrete works for the plant are complete. Structural erection of the crusher circuit has also been completed and the primary and secondary crushers have been positioned. The two ball mills are now in positon and the gold room erection is well progressed. All structural steel and tankage erection is complete with leach agitators installed.
Construction and commissioning of the 3 Mw diesel power station is complete. Transformers and transmission lines distributing power to both the plant and the mine have been installed. The plant site workshop is complete. The site laboratory, for mill and grade control analyses, has also been built. This is now being equipped and will be fully operational before the end of May.
Recruitment of key Indonesian managers, staff and labour for all sectors of the project progresses well and experienced people have already been successfully hired for most critical positions.
Mine Development
Mining this quarter continued with raising and sublevel driving in both the A and B ore bodies between the 1020 Main Haulage Level and the 1065 Level in preparation for production stoping. The sill dive within the 1065 level was developed for the full strike extent of the A ore body at that level.
The underground headframe and winder has been installed and commissioned above the underground inclined shaft to the 960 Level. This is now over 50% complete.
As much of this development continues to be in high grade ore approximately 16,640 tonnes of ore grading 20.5 g/t Gold and 241 g/t Silver has been stockpiled at the surface.
Grade control face sampling within the sublevel drives continues to confirm that the grade being encountered represents significantly higher grades of both metals than was predicted from the feasibility drill based resource estimate.
Weighted average face sampling grades along the strike of the various levels (Figure 1) returned the following highly encouraging results:
?A? Ore Body
Main Haulage Level 112 m @ 20.4 g/t Au, 350 g/t Ag
Sub Level 1 63 m @ 34.2 g/t Au, 452 g/t Ag
Sub Level 2 62 m @ 21.2 g/t Au, 330 g/t Ag
Sub Level 3 68 m @ 38.0 g/t Au, 291 g/t Ag
Sub Level 4 52 m @ 24.0 g/t Au, 239 g/t Ag
1065 Level 104 m @ 26.7 g/t Au, 192 g/t Ag
?B? Ore Body
Main Haulage Level 90 m @ 30.2 g/t Au, 367 g/t Ag
Sub Level 1 87 m @ 31.7 g/t Au, 422 g/t Ag
Sub Level 2 68 m @ 37.5 g/t Au, 525 g/t Ag
Further development in ore is scheduled for the coming quarter and will continue to increase the stockpile tonnage up to the mill start up.
Geology and exploration
Diamond drilling from surface has continued to extend the known strike length of the North Vein Fracture Zone, which hosts the A and B Ore bodies, over 500 metres to the north of the mine development. Each of the six drill holes testing the strike extension intersected 2 to 4 metres of calcite +1- quartz veining directly along strike from the mining area. Although these intersections are generally low gold tenor anomalous silver persists (up to 112 g/t Ag). The strike persistence of this zone is encouraging for the potential of additional mineralised zones to occur related to other upflow zones along this structure to the north.
Drilling south the Semung Besar River has also extended the zone of mineralisation to over 500 metres south of the mine development. Abundant epithermal quartz veins between 20 cm and 4 m in width have been intersected within a broad 200 metre wide zone hosted in an andesitic volcaniclastic succession. These veins generally exhibit colloform banded textures with abundant chalcedony indicative of the very high level, cooler part of the epithermal system. Gold grades in these veins consistently 1 to 3 g/t Au (maximum 7.56 g/t Au) and the Ag:Au ratio is consistently 10:1. The abundance of such high level veining as seen in the drill core from this zone indicates potential for higher grade boiling zones at depth. Deeper drill testing will be a priority following commencement of production.
Regional geological teams are currently undertaking geochemical soil sampling programmes and regional mapping in the areas surrounding Way Linggo, as well as targets defined by the airborne geophysical survey and structural analysis. (end of edited excerpt)