Guyana Gold aims to expand Sabi

Production from the Sabi gold mine in Zimbabwe is being expanded.

Since it acquired a 55% interest in the mine 10 months ago, Guyana Gold (TSE) has extracted 10,071 oz. from the mine at a cash cost of US$271 per oz.

The company is committed to upgrading the mine, over a 3-year period, to 20,000 from the current 7,000 tonnes per month. The upgrade is designed to raise annual production to 40,000 oz. at a projected cash cost of less than US$226 per oz.

Guyana Gold acquired its interest in the Sabi in 1995 for US$9 million. The remaining 45% interest is held by state-owned Zimbabwe Mining Development.

The mine hosts 3.7 million tonnes grading 5.78 grams gold per tonne, as well as a “possible” reserve of 3.1 million tonnes grading 5.14 grams.

Reserves exist in a 150-metre wide shear zone, which hosts

parallel-to-sub-parallel, vertically dipping, en echelon quartz vein bodies over a 1.3-km strike length. The average width of the quartz vein systems is 1.2 metres.

A 571-hectare mining lease encompasses the Sabi mine, covering 5 km of the shear zone’s strike length. The company holds an exclusive prospecting order, which covers an additional 3,953 hectares along 17.5 km of potential strike length.

Guyana Gold is attempting to double the geological resource by conducting 5,000 metres of reverse-circulation drilling along strike, in conjunction with an equal amount of diamond drilling.

Drilling on the Humourist shear zone, 600 metres west of the Main Sabi shear, returned selected values of 1.09 metres grading 137.91 grams for hole 9 and 0.27 metre grading 53.52 grams for hole 8. Surface mapping indicates the Humourist zone averages up to 600 metres wide and extends over a strike length of 3.5 km. This is the company’s first attempt at drilling the Humourist, where several mines have operated in the past.

Meanwhile, in recent underground developmental work at Sabi, several mineralized zones were intersected by a crosscut being driven to the Far West shear, 300 metres west of the Main shear. Values included

1 metre grading 18.8 grams, which correlates to the Koodoo’s Luck shear, and 1.6 metres grading 13.2 grams, which represents a newly identified zone.

Guyana is currently mining to a depth of 140 metres. Previous operator Anglo American sunk a shaft to a depth of 366 metres during a period of development mining, and Dennis Milburn, chairman of Guyana’s board, says the structures appear to be getting stronger at depth and mineralization remains wide open.

Guyana has working capital of $3 million and 25.1 million shares outstanding, or 39.9 million fully diluted.