Auriga Gold has released a preliminary NI43-101 resource estimate of the previously producing Puffy Lake gold deposit, which is located at the Maverick Gold Project in Manitoba.
The drilling program during May 2011 has produced 174,000 oz gold in total as underground and in-pit Indicated Resources and 558,000 oz gold as Inferred Resources. P & E Mining Consultants calculated the resource by means of the results obtained from more than 300 past drill holes by prior operators and 41 drill holes by Auriga Gold.
The CEO of Auriga Gold has stated that the primary resource estimate at the Puffy Lake is highly potential and the company is positive by the optimized in-pit resources, which will outline a prospective starter pit for restarting the drilling process. This resource shows a major increase in the total gold from the past results and reflects the underground cut off grade decreasing to 2.5 g/t gold. The company has scheduled to complete the project’s Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA), which will offer costs and a plan to re-begin the mining operations. This project has extensive processing and mining infrastructure.
The mineral resource depends on the subsequent assumptions. The company will mine the resources using the underground and open-pit mining techniques at a rate of around 1,000 t in a day, which is the extent of the present onsite mill. A block model having Gemcom GEMS software announced the resources. The evaluation was done on the individual domains for the underground and in-pit programs employing inverse distance cubed interpolation methods. The grade is evaluated into 2 m x 2 m x 2 m blocks. Auriga Gold utilized the 30 g/t gold top cut. It has calculated the underground resources by means of a minimum of 1.2 m true thickness. Pit optimization software was used to appraise the in pit resources to outline a pit shell and show a prospective open pit resource. The previous assumptions are the groundwork and will need additional estimation in a PEA.
The company has started a summer drilling campaign focusing on growing gold resources existing at the Puffy Lake mine property and on the strike and the contiguous properties. Additionally, Auriga Gold has begun the restarting of the current mining permits and mine development campaign again with an environmental study and a cost appraisal to renovate the on-site 1,000 t per day mill.
Source: http://www.aurigagold.ca/