Oct 15 2010
Crocodile Gold Corp. (TSX:CRK)(OTCQX:CROCF)(FRANKFURT:XGC) has announced an updated mineral resource estimate at its Pine Creek project area in the Northern Territory of Australia with a significant upgrade of inferred mineral resources to indicated mineral resources and also an increase in the overall estimates of both indicated mineral resources and inferred mineral resources.
Crocodile Gold believes that this substantial upgrade of inferred to indicated mineral resources demonstrates the near term upside potential of the Pine Creek area to be a significant long life mining project in its own right. Crocodile Gold plans to accelerate development of one or more deposits in this area by early 2011 as they are within 15 kilometres of the Union Reefs mill.
Highlights include:
- Increase of 315% in indicated resource ounces from 69,600 ounces to 288,600 ounces; and
- Excellent potential for a large portion of the indicated resource to be converted to mineable reserves as the reported resources were restricted using optimised pit shells, the parameters used are the current operating costs with a gold price below the current Australian Dollar gold price.
In releasing this information, David Keough, Chief Operating Officer of Crocodile Gold commented, "We believe that the upside potential in this area is significant as the bulk of exploration to date has been to a depth of less than 100 metres and we have fast tracked exploration, environmental and mine engineering studies to realize this potential in the near term. We believe one or more deposits can be brought into production by early 2011 with minimal capital requirements and the added advantage of reducing operating cash costs as these deposits are within 15 kilometres of the Union Reefs mill. We currently transport ore from our mines in the Burnside area approximately 80 kilometres to the Union Reefs mill which costs approximately US$125 per ounce. This mineral resource upgrade required minimal drilling and geological studies and demonstrates one of many opportunities that exist on our 2,500 km2 land package."
Historical production in the Pine Creek area has yielded over 750,000 ounces of gold production from six open pits and some limited underground production. An updated mineral resource estimate is shown in Table 1 below.
Crocodile Gold intends to announce an updated mineral reserve at Pine Creek shortly and also expects to update the NI 43-101 mineral resources in the Union Reefs area adjacent to the existing Union Reefs mill.
Qualified Person
Mark Edwards, Geology Manager of Crocodile Gold Australia Operations, and Heath Gerritsen, Mining Manager of Crocodile Gold Australia Operations are each a "qualified person" as such term is defined in National Instrument 43-101 and has reviewed and confirmed the technical information and data included in this press release.
Source: Crocodile Gold Corp.