MONARCH GOLD MINING High grade hits elevates Riverina revival Western Australia’s ambitious Monarch Gold Mining Co has had a positive advance on its plans to reopen its next mining project – the old Riverina gold mining camp north of Kalgoorlie.
Author: Ross Louthean Posted: Tuesday , 15 Jan 2008
PERTH -
Australian and Dubai stock exchanges-listed Monarch Gold Mining Co (ASX/DIFX: MON) has had some high-grade intersections outside the area of a soon-to-be-developed open cut mine at the Riverina mining centre.
The company's Managing Director Matthew Gill said this highlighted the potential for extensions outside of the current pit plan.
"Riverina is really shaping up, and these further positive drilling results auger well for the Company as it moves to ramp up activity at the project and capitalise on the strong gold prices," Gill said.
That high gold price saw the metal's price today at $A1,007/ounce - a factor that has helped elevate the price of many Australian gold producers and also saw a new float Scotgold Resources Ltd come on the market at a 20% premium, counter to the negative starts by many non-gold IPOs in late December and early January.
Riverina currently has an indicated and inferred resource of 1.65 million tonnes grading 3.8 grams/tonne, for 200,000 contained ounces. Monarch has committed $A11 million ($US9.88M) this financial year for its exploration programme to increase resources and extend mine life across all its Goldfields tenements.
Some of the drill hits within the optimised pit area at Riverina were 4m @ 7.09 g/t from 36m and 8m @ 6.68 g/t from 24m. Hits east of the planned pit included 5m @ 65.8 g/t from 72m, 11m @ 5.32 g/t from 75m and 7m @ 5 g/t gold from 15m.
In the 1980s and early 1990s there were two initiatives by two other parties to re-open the underground operations at Riverina first developed in the 1920-30s by the legendary entrepreneur Claude de Bernales, seen by some as a great mine developer and a corporate scoundrel by others.
Gill said Monarch had brought forward planned mining at Riverina, and was due to commission the operation in the current quarter and would deliver a steady ramp up over the following 12 months.
"Monarch is unhedged and in production, with the largest Australian-controlled landholding in the Kalgoorlie region," he said. In the Western Australian goldfields the company has a total resource base of more than 5 million ounces.
Mining has started at the Davyhurst project and Mount Ida, respectively south and north of Riverina. Late last year the company bought the Mount Magnet mining operations from Harmony Gold where there is a 2.7 Mtpa capacity mill and 1,100 km2 of exploration ground. Monarch put Mt Magnet into mothballs to undertake an aggressive exploration programme. Other projects are the Minjar project in the Yalgoo goldfield and the old Bellevue mine, north of Mt Ida.
The company's quest is to achieve producing at the annualised mining rate of 500,000 ounces by December 2009.
