Oct 29 2012
Sona Resources Corp. is pleased to provide a progress report on the Blackdome-Elizabeth Gold Project, located in the Clinton and Lillooet Mining Districts, approximately 220 kilometres north of Vancouver.
Sona recently received a conditional Special Use Permit ("SUP") from the British Columbia Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations for the construction of approximately five kilometres of road, which will directly connect the Blackdome Gold Mine ("Blackdome") and the Elizabeth Gold Deposit Property ("Elizabeth") by existing forest service roads. This will facilitate the transportation of mineralized rock from Elizabeth to the processing mill at Blackdome. The SUP is subject to Sona posting a $200,000 bond. In support of the SUP, independent consulting firms have developed a terrain stability assessment, a wildlife management plan and a road management plan. Construction of the new road is scheduled to begin in the summer of 2013.
Sona has also been granted an effluent discharge permit by the British Columbia Ministry of Environment for the discharge of water from the Southwest Portal on the Elizabeth property during the planned underground drifting, drilling and sampling program on the mineralized Southwest Vein. The underground program is designed to increase the known gold mineral resources and to improve confidence in the existing resource.
A Notice of Work, issued by the provincial Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, is in place on the Elizabeth property to permit an additional 6,000 metres of surface diamond drilling. The program is designed to develop additional gold resources.
The positive June 2010 Micon Preliminary Economic Assessment on the Blackdome-Elizabeth Gold Project, which estimated a capital cost of $30 million and a cash cost of $686 per ounce of gold recovered, has been updated internally by Sona to better reflect current market conditions. Sona now estimates that capital costs will be approximately $42 million with an additional $5 million required for further resource development. A 20 percent contingency has been applied to all costs. These estimates have not been independently verified.
Sona is seeking to raise the required capital expenditures and resource development funds via a combination of debt and equity financing.
Source: http://www.sonaresources.com