As Petaquilla Minerals (PTQ-T, PTQMF-O) gets set to bring its Molejon gold project in Panama into production this year, the company’s latest drill program has given it a better understanding of the deposit and will enable it to upgrade the resource.
New drill data complements previous work at Molejon and will allow the company to upgrade inferred and indicated resources to indicated and measured, respectively. Petaquilla says that the results have also verified the geologic interpretation of the high-grade shell and allowed the company to include a previously undrilled region in the model.
Petaquilla found that drill holes that did not intercept mineralization were near the perimeter of the deposit.
Highlights from drilling include 8.8 metres grading 5.06 grams gold per tonne, 12.5 metres grading 9.99 grams gold and 20 metres grading 3.5 grams gold.
Petaquilla is also in the middle of a field mapping and surface-sampling program at its nearby Lata prospect, where diamond drilling has just begun.
Some surface samples returned such grades as 11.7 grams gold per tonne, 8.24 grams gold and 2.02 grams gold.
The company says the surface samples show a northwest-trending structure that projects to the south toward Molejon and confirms the district geological interpretation.
Petaquilla is also in the middle of a 260-line-km induced-polarization geophysics program, which is about 30% complete.
Measured resources total 593,000 oz. gold, indicated resources 318,000 oz. gold, and inferred resources 459,000 oz. gold.
The company is in the midst of building a 2,200-tonne-per-day carbon-in-leach plant but is considering upgrading it to 5,000 tonnes per day, depending on the improved resource estimate. Petaquilla is looking at producing 120,000 oz. gold per year at a cash cost of US$200 per oz.
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