International Goldfields takes delivery of 1M ounce gold Resource estimate

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: International Goldfields (ASX: IGS) informed the market in October of its intentions to enter into a conditional Binding Heads of Agreement with US-based, Santa Fe Gold Corporation that will combine the companies.

In connection with anticipated merger, Santa Fe has delivered to IGS a recently-completed independent review of historical drilling, sampling and metallurgical data at the Ortiz gold project, one of Santa Fe’s advanced exploration assets.

The recent work has delineated a JORC-compliant gold resource estimation at the Ortiz project.

 

Source: Company announcement

 

The resource report estimates Measured and Indicated copper mineral resources from the Lukas deposit at 13 million tonnes (14.3 million short tons) at 0.142 per cent total copper, for 18,400 tonnes (40.6Mlb) of contained copper.

Inferred copper mineral resources from Lukas are an additional one million tonnes (1.1 million short tons) at 0.122 per cent total copper, for 1,200 tonnes (2.7Mlb) contained copper.

IGS said the gold at Lukas (current Measured and Indicated resource of 378,200 ounces of gold) is anticipated to be recovered within a copper concentrate.

According to IGS the Ortiz project has been subjected to previous independent, though not JORC-compliant studies in 2005.

These were based on a 1992 historic resource estimation, which evaluated the open pit mining of approximately one million ounces of gold from the Carache and Lukas gold deposits.

“This study, together with other historical independent evaluations and studies (including metallurgical test work) suggested that low cost recovery options may be available for the deposits,” International Goldfields said in its ASX announcement.

“Previous studies are currently being re-evaluated and optimised to include copper recoveries from the Lukas deposit.”

IGS indicated that it anticipates the two companies will work together to update these studies post-merger.

A Scoping Study for the Ortiz project is expected to be completed by mid-year 2013 with environmental permitting studies also expected to commence in Q1 2013.