Sona finding its gear in southern BC

A mistake at the lab turned out to be good news for Sona Resources (SYS-V).

The company reported that seven composite assay results from its 2010 drill program at its Elizabeth gold deposit in southwestern B.C. have been revised after being submitted for re-assaying with check samples.

The most significant revision was seen in hole 069, which the lab had originally assayed at 4 metres of 85.4 grams gold, but now says grades 77.9 grams gold over 5.3 metres.

In Toronto on March 30 – the day the correction was released – Sona shares moved up 4% or 4¢ to $1.18 on 29,000 shares traded.

Sona says the revisions don’t affect the recent resource estimate at Elizabeth as the results weren’t included in the calculation.

They will, however, go into an updated resource report, along with the results from its upcoming underground and surface exploration programs, which is due this the fall. 

That upcoming drill program, which started in April, will see underground drifting on its Southwest vein at Elizabeth.

The company built a new underground portal on the vein last December at the 2,300-metre level.

Sona says drilling will be done with an eye towards moving current inferred resources into the measured and indicated categories and adding tonnage by exploring the vein along strike and downdip.

Elizabeth is roughly 250 km northeast of Vancouver and has an inferred resource of 522,900 tonnes, grading 12.3 grams gold for 206,100 oz. gold.

Formed in 1990, Sona has already operated a small-scale gold mine at its flagship property, the wholly owned Blackdome gold mine, which sits 30 km north of Elizabeth.

Blackdome’s historic production totaled 225,000 oz. over four years from a head grade of 20 grams per tonne.

The project currently hosts a deposit with an indicated resource of 144,500 tonnes at 11.29 grams for 52,600 oz. gold, with another 90,600 inferred tonnes of 8.79 grams gold. The site also has tailings with an inferred resource of 298,000 tonnes at 1.47 grams gold for 14,145 oz. gold.

Both Elizabeth and Blackdome are near the historic Bralorne mine which produced over 4 million oz. gold, and sits 15 km south of Elizabeth.

The company plans to restart Blackdome by late 2013, milling ore at a rate of 200 tonnes per day to produce 24,000 oz. gold per year, with feed coming from both Blackdome and Elizabeth.

The cost of replacing the infrastructure at the site is estimated to be $80 million.

The long-term plan is to expand the mill throughput to 600 tonnes per day so that it can turn out 70,000 oz. gold per year. 

A preliminary economic assessment done on the project last spring estimated cash costs of $686 per oz. gold.