PERTH (Commodity Online): Troy Resources NL (TSX: TRY, ASX: TRY) announced that the findings accounts 19% growth resource Inventory and also contain nearly double the contained gold equivalent ounces at the Casposo Project after the initial mineral resource estimate at Kamila Southeast Zone.
Troy’s CEO, Paul Benson, said: “This is a very exciting announcement. The new Measured and Indicated Resource at 257,000t and a grade of 14.50g/t Au_eq for a contained inventory of 119,900oz Au_eq represents a 19% increase in the sites M+I Resources and a near doubling of the underground inventory. Within this Resource there is a high grade zone above a 5g/t Au_eq cut-off of 196,000t at 17.95g/t Au_eq containing 113,100oz Au_eq in the Measured and Indicated categories.
“This is strategically extremely important for the Casposo operation as it should allow us to start the underground mine earlier than currently planned to access the high grade underground ore. This would allow us to avoid the drop in production in the current schedule in years 3 and 4 and maintain production above the 100,000oz Au_eq for longer and extend the mine life.
“It is worth noting that the gold equivalent estimates use the 70:1 ratio to convert silver to gold equivalent as used in our most recent NI43-101 report. If you use a ratio of 50:1, which is a closer estimate using today’s metal prices, the total high grade Resource (M+I) above 5g/t cut-off would be 196,000t grading 22.49g/t Au_eq which represents an increase of about 25.3% in gold-equivalent ounces compared to the calculation at a 70:1 conversation factor.
“It is also important to remember that this Resource is just from testing the first 500m southeast along the Kamila structural corridor. We firmly believe there is good potential for additional ounces along the remaining kilometre of structure to the southeast that is untested and in the 4km gap between the Mercado and Julieta Resources to the northwest which also has not been drilled.
“We will keep the current two high productivity drill rigs in this area for the next 6 to 8 weeks to complete infill drilling. This will allow detailed mine planning to be completed and should enable us to convert some of the Resources that are currently in the Inferred category to Measured or Indicated. At this stage we expect to be able to produce a Mining Reserve for this block by early 2012. At that time we expect to update the entire Reserve and Resource and will take into account updated assumptions including the silver to gold conversion ratio. Once the infill drilling is complete we would look to use the rigs to recommence step out drilling to test the remainder of the southeast structure.”
In January 2011 Diamond Core drilling commenced adjacent to the existing Kamila Resource and Reserve and in March the discovery Hole CA-11-295 was drilled and it yielded 14.70m at 7.79g/t gold and 1,292g/t silver or 26.24g/t Au_eq from 342.50m downhole.
The drilling was designed to test several of the known veins (Inca Vein and Southeast Extension Vein – “B” Vein) at depth and along strike through a series of infill and step-out extensional drill holes within the structurally complex northwest - southeast trending corridor that hosts the Kamila and Mercado Deposits.
Drilling comprised a series of southwest to northeast oriented holes planned to test B Vein/Southeast Extension Vein at shallow depths (+/- 100m) and the Inca Vein deeper in each hole (about 250m – 400m). A total of 25,681m have been drilled in 44 holes. Drilling to date has tested only about 500m of the 1.5km long target southeast of the post mineral dyke.
The mineralisation encountered is the same style of low sulphidation epithermal vein hosted high grade gold and silver associated with the Inca Vein within the existing underground Kamila Mining Reserve. The veins are hosted within andesite and can occur as massive, banded or brecciated quartz veins with classic ginguro textures and fine grained black sulphides as well as minor amounts of pyrite-chalcopyrite, and native silver. Local minor quartz vein stockworks are common.
The Kamila Southeast Resource model was constrained by a detailed wireframe of the Low Sulphidation epithermal vein hosted mineralisation with intervals within the wireframe composited to 1m. Blocks in the model were interpolated by using an inverse distance cubed algorithm with the orientation of the search ellipsoid being adjusted to reflect the local orientation of the wireframe. The resource estimate was completed for Troy by Perth based Auralia Mining Consulting Group.
In terms of the Casposo Underground Measured and Indicated Resource Inventory, this new zone represents a 132% increase in the contained gold equivalent ounces as well as a 169% increase in terms of Underground Inferred Resources gold equivalent ounces (at 2g/t Au_eq cut-off).
On a total Casposo Project Resources basis the new discovery represents a 19% increase in Measured and Indicated Resource gold equivalent ounces.
