Ateba flush with Pan-Empire success makes new gold finds

With the Pan-Empire mill in Beardmore, Ont., operating up to snuff at rates of 200 tons per day, tse-listed Ateba Mines Inc. has taken a giant step in finding more ore to feed that mill.

Company geologists have uncovered some promising new gold discoveries on ground stretching six miles to the northeast towards Geraldton.

Some 30,000 ft of drilling has resulted in the discovery of the Contact Zone, located on ground optioned from Pancontinental Mining about one-half mile from the Pan-Empire mill.

Drilling has shown the zone persists below a post-ore diabase dike to a depth of about 900 ft where hole number 10 intersected 4.4 ft of 0.516 oz gold per ton and 6.2 ft of 0.06 oz, according to Ateba President A.C.A. Howe.

This zone may be subject to drilling in the near future.

Three other new discoveries are being stripped and sampled in detail with drilling planned for the more promising zones.

The Orion showing is very promising. It has been traced for more than 300 ft and shows grades in the order of 0.21 oz over 4 ft; 0.17 oz over 3.6 ft and 0.06 oz over 5 ft.

And the ssd vein, which has been traced along strike for 500 ft returned samples grading 0.178 oz gold per ton across a width of 1.2 ft.

Ateba too is preparing for a 16,000-ft underground drilling program on the old Magnet mine property in Geraldton. The company is waiting for dewatering pumps to provide access to the 2,600-ft level of the mine where good mine- making potential exists according to joint venture partner Roxmark Resources.

Howe reports millhead grades at the Pan-Empire mill have averaged 0.215 oz over the last week — up significantly from 0.02 oz recorded during the start-up phase.

Recoveries in that period were 92%, Howe reports. This augurs well for this operation, which is designed to treat relatively low grade run-of-mine material from old gold mine workings in the Geraldton-Beardmore area.

Ateba started screening and sorting this dump material on Sept 15. Since then, about 65,000 tons have been screened and crushed.

About 10,000 tons have been processed through a state-of-the-art ore sorting machine which electronically detects and physically separates mineralized rock from barren chunks of rock.

“Despite the late start-up, the sorter has operated efficiently with an average estimated throughput of 400 tons per day,” Howe says.

“It has consistently been extracting from the screened dump material, gold ore that has returned assays of 0.3 to 1.0 oz. The estimated average is 0.5 oz.” This material is blended with lower-grade material and processed in the mill. Profits generated by the mill, which are expected to be about $3.2 million over the next two years, are to be used to finance exploration work in the area.