Republic Gold confirms high-grade gold in Bolivia
THE DRILL SERGEANT: Sydney-based Bolivia-focused gold exploration play Republic Gold has received the results from the final four drill-holes of a 16 drill-holes it has completed as part of a larger development drilling program at the Amayapampa gold project in Bolivia.
The 16 drill-hole program was commissioned specifically to enhance predictability of early production mill feed when Amayapampa goes into production.
The latest results follow the successful completion of earlier drill-holes.
According to Republic the overall drill program achieved its intended purpose and also provided valuable insights into the local controls on high grade mineralisation which will be harnessed in the grade re-estimate.
“On review of the grade-tonnage curve at the project, around half the Amayapampa resource is approximately twice the average deposit grade,” Republic Gold said in an announcement.
“With these most recent results and those anticipated from the pending larger drill-program, the increasing proportion of higher grades that are utilised in the resource estimate will allow for better local grade estimation and therefore the ability to optimise the mining schedule.”
During the recent drill program, Republic carried out reverse circulation and diamond core drilling to refine the ore type tonnage estimates that will be mined at the start of production.
Early production will be from the more oxidised ore types, therefore it is beneficial to increase the confidence of predicting the quantities of each ore type to be mined.
Republic gold technical director Neb Zurkic said the company was pleased with the additional, impressive assay results.
“This time we received some excellent assays from drill-holes BOX-08 and BOX-09, where we again saw broad intervals of significant mineralisation,” Zurkic said in the announcement.
“The visible gold interval in BOX-09 assayed 18.45 grams per tonne and this was within a zone of 45 metres, averaging well above the ore grade as defined in the January feasibility study.”
Zurkic indicated an interesting aspect of the results to be that the very high grade component in drill-holes BOX-08 and BOX-09 is deeper in the system than the high grades encountered in the previously reported BOX-10 and BOX-11.
“This not only confirms our model that captures the northerly plunging geology, but also demonstrates that these very high grade shoots are continuous over several sections of drilling and in this case, to at least between 50-100m in length,” he said.
Republic will now consider follow-up exploration to see what lies down plunge of BOX-08 and BOX-09 and is reviewing whether to plan additional drill-holes to further extend this high grade shoot.
Plans are also well advanced to mobilise three drill-rigs for a resource development campaign planned to commence by the end of June.