TVX Gold calculates new resource in Greece

Drilling has enabled TVX Gold (tvx-t) to calculate resource figures for its Skouries copper-gold project in northern Greece.

Last year, the company sank 23 diamond drill holes in a program exceeding 15,500 metres. To date, the company has drilled a total of 33,000 metres.

The data were combined with those of past producers to calculate a resource of 314 million tonnes grading 0.69 gram gold per tonne and 0.43% copper at a cutoff of 0.3 gram. At a cutoff of 1 gram, the resource stands at 56 million tonnes grading 1.46 grams gold and 0.66% copper.

If only TVX’s drill data are used, the resource stands at 266 million tonnes grading 0.7 gram gold and 0.5% copper, based on a cutoff of 0.3 gram. At a cutoff of 1 gram, the resource is estimated to be 47 million tonnes grading 1.51 grams gold and 0.81% copper.

The calculations have been audited by an independent consulting firm. Kriging was used, which employed a search radius for the measured, indicated and inferred categories of 40, 65 and 120 metres, respectively.

Relative to the combined data, TVX’s data returned higher gold and copper grades in individual resource categories. Additional infill drilling is required to determine complete tonnage and grades.

The upper portion of the deposit is being delineated to a depth of 350 metres, with a 22,000-metre drill program employing a 50-by-50-metre grid. That work will be followed by a 10,000-metre program of deep drilling designed to outline the high-grade core zone at depth.

The Skouries deposit, which is amenable to open-pit mining, consists of an 80,000-sq.-km central porphyry pipe in which mineralization extends vertically to a depth of 750 metres. That zone contains two high-grade zones at surface and depth. The central zone is flanked to the west and southwest by a lower-grade zone, which is generated by a recently discovered gold-copper-molybdenum porphyry that intrudes schist wallrock at depth.

While the gold-to-copper ratio is 2-to-1 in the central zone, the ratio drops to 1-to-1 in the outer zone, which averages 0.5 gram gold, 0.45% copper and 0.02% molybdenum.

An engineering study is evaluating the central part of the deposit for initial open-pit and underground mining. Favorable topography and deposit geometry will result in a low stripping ratio for an initial open pit, and will allow for a relatively short access drift for the underground high-grade zone. The high-grade zone at depth is open to the east, whereas the newly discovered porphyry remains open to the southwest.

Meanwhile, surface and underground drilling continues elsewhere on the Kassandra property, which the company acquired in 1995. This work is designed to generate bankable reserves by the third quarter, and results to date confirm the previous reserve estimate.