Petaquilla’s Spanish opencut resource wiped out
Mark Mentiplay, 28th May 2012
The complete loss of a 2.1Moz opencut gold resource at its Lomero-Poyatos Project in Spain has taken a good deal of the lustre from the key project Petaquilla Minerals got with last year’s acquisition of Iberian Resources Corp.
A revised technical report relating to the Lomero-Poyatos Project no longer includes the previously disclosed inferred openpit resource of 20.6Mt at 3.1 g/t Au, 69.9 g/t Ag, 3.3% Zn, 1.2% Cu, 1.2% Pb, containing 2.1Moz of gold.
New report author Behre Dolbear concludes the previously disclosed openpit resources do not have reasonable prospects for economic extraction at present and do not meet the mineral resources definition under NI 43-101. However, Petaquilla notes that the inferred resource estimates for an underground mining scenario have been confirmed at 6.07Mt averaging 4.25g/t Au and 88.74g/t Ag, containing 0.83Moz Au based on a 1g/t Au cut-off. The deposit also contains some minor copper, lead and zinc values.
The company says underground production will begin with the rehabilitation of the existing mine workings.
Behre Dolbear believes the company should continue to examine the economic viability of open-pit operations of the lower-grade near-surface mineralisation, as previous studies were completed at much lower metal prices.
Petaquilla’s flagship Molejon Gold Project in Panama produced 55,566oz at cash costs of $US577oz in calendar 2011 and expects to produce 68,100oz-70,000oz in the current year. The project has 643,266oz gold proven/probable and 1,008,693oz silver proven/probable.
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