Minefinders boosts Dolores (June 05, 2003)

Vancouver – Recent drilling along the 2.2-km long main Dolores zone has enhanced the economic prospects of the large system in Mexico’s Chihuahua state.

Owner Minefinders (MFL-T) has punched an additional 40,500 metres into the deposit since June 2002 paving the way for the junior to upgrade its inferred resource to the measured and indicated categories in preparation for a bankable feasibility study.

The latest resource model boosts the tonnage in the measured category by 32.6% while increasing the contained gold by 34%.

Using a 0.6 gold equivalent cut-off, the preliminary measured resource tallies 24.4 million tonnes grading 1.26 grams gold and 62.4 grams silver per tonne. Upping the cut-off to 3 grams gold equivalent, the resource hits 3.8 million tonnes grading 4.1 grams gold and 176.7 grams silver.

In the measured and indicated section, the resource comes in at 50.8 million tonnes grading 1.26 grams gold and 61.4 grams silver. Upping the cut-off to 3 grams, the resource stands at 7.9 million tonnes grading 4.01 grams gold and 166.9 grams silver.

A further 21.9 million tonnes grading 1.29 grams gold and 56.8 grams silver sit in the inferred section, while using a 3 gram gold equivalent cut-off the resource averages3.15 million tonnes grading 4.07 grams gold and 151.4 grams silver.

A final resource model will be released with the feasibility study.

Prior results pegged the overall resource, based on a cutoff grade of 0.6 gram gold-equivalent, at 65.4 million tonnes grading 1.13 grams gold and 65.7 grams silver.

The measured and indicated portion alone stood at 43 million tonnes grading 1.16 grams gold and 67.9 grams silver, equivalent to 1.6 million oz. gold and 93.8 million oz. silver. The inferred category contained 22.5 million tonnes grading 1.07 grams gold and 61.6 grams silver, or 772,000 oz. gold and 44.5 million oz. silver.

The cut-off grade uses a 75-to-1 ratio for silver-to-gold.

The Dolores project is set in the rugged terrain of the Sierra Madre Occidental range, in the west-central part of the state, 250 km west of the city of Chihuahua. The property can be reached by a 4-hour drive along 90 km of logging roads from the town of Madera (pop. 35,000). A small local landing strip is close by.

The deposit is a low-sulphide, epithermal, quartz-adularia-sericite system structurally controlled by northwest-striking, high-angle shear zones. The mineralized trend occurs in a series of volcanic rocks dominated by andesite flows, flow breccias and tuffs conformably overlain by felsic volcaniclastics and intercalated latitic flow rocks.