Red Back expands Chirano (August 16, 2004)

Vancouver — Drilling by Red Back Mining (RBI-V) has expanded the resource at the Chirano gold project in southwestern Ghana.

Measured and indicated resources at the project, situated 15 km south of AngloGold-Ashanti‘s (AU-N) multi-million-ounce Bibiani mine, now stand at 28.8 million tonnes grading 2 grams gold per tonne, or 1.8 million oz. That’s an increase of 22% from the previous estimate.

In the inferred category are 7.9 million tonnes grading 2 grams gold per tonne, or 509,000 oz.

Red Back Mining was formed as a result of the November 2003 merger between the Canadian company Champion Resources and Australian-based Red Back Mining NL. The new company is part of the Lundin group, in Vancouver.

Gold mineralization at Chirano remains open at depth in all of the proposed pit areas.

Also, drilling has uncovered extensions and new zones of mineralization at depth and along strike. Red Back intends to drill 5,000-10,000 metres to test areas outside and between the proposed pits. The Chirano and Bibiani shear zones remain largely unexplored.

Open-pit designing and mine scheduling are under way.