Hera Resource Upgrade
Sydney, April 21, 2015 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Aurelia Metals Limited (
ASX:AMI) ("AMI" or the "Company") is pleased to report a substantial upgrade to the Hera Mineral Resource Estimate at its 100% owned, high-grade Hera gold-lead-zinc project in central NSW. The Mineral Resource estimate has been completed in accordance with the guidelines of the JORC Code (2012 edition).
Aurelia achieved first production at the Hera Project in the September quarter of 2014, and commercial production was recently declared from 1 April 2015.
This Resource upgrade follows significant exploration success at the northern and southern limits of the previous Hera Resource from both surface and underground drilling, as well as the inclusion of stope delineation drill results from underground development. As such, the updated Resource has demonstrated increases in both the size and grade of the Hera Resource relative to the previous estimate in June 2011.
- New Hera Resource Estimate:
3.2Mt @ 3.75 g/t Au, 33.4 g/t Ag, 3.5% Pb and 4.6% Zn
- Hera Resource tonnage increased by more than 32%
- Resource grade increased by 5%
- More than 65% of Resources now contained in Measured and Indicated categories
- Increases to grade of zinc, lead and silver, driving total grade increase of 5%
- Implied extension of mine life of circa 2 years
- Resource growth driven by exploration successes at Hera North and Hera South
- Hera remains open to north and south, providing significant potential for additional resource growth
Table 1: Hera Mineral Resource Estimate:
Category Tonnes NSR($/t) Au(g/t) Ag(g/t) Cu(%) Pb(%) Zn(%)Total Measured 840,000 310 5.58 15.9 0.24 3.12 3.64Total Indicated 1,270,000 222 3.40 16.0 0.13 2.78 4.28Total Inferred 1,122,000 237 2.78 66.1 0.11 4.56 5.59Grand Total 3,233,000 250 3.75 33.4 0.15 3.49 4.57
Note: The Hera Resource estimate utilises a A$125/tonne NSR cut-off. Tonnage estimates have been rounded to nearest 1000 tonnes. Metal grades have been rounded to nearest 2 decimal places. A full summary of the Estimate is included with this release as Appendix 1.
Highlights of the Resource estimate in comparison to previous estimate (2011), include:
- An increase of 790,00 tonnes or 32% over previous estimate;
- A 100% increase in silver grade;
- A 27% increase in lead grade;
- A 19% increase in zinc grade;
- A 5% increase in total grade (as measured by NSR, defined below);
- Implied mine life extension of circa 2 years
- Inclusion of a Measured component for the first time, with the Measured and Indicated categories, now representing more than 65% of the total Resource.
In addition, it pleasing to report that a significant portion of the Resource (25%) is now in the higher confidence Measured category for the first time, and 65% of the Resource is in Measured and Indicated categories combined.
The growth in the Resource to over 3.2Mt implies that an extension of mine life of approximately 2 years can be expected, however, the Company will need to complete further work to report an updated Reserves estimate before mine life extension can be confirmed, including additional permitting that may be required. In addition, the Company is confident of continuing to grow the resource over time as exploration continues given the project remains open to both the north and south.
Commenting on the upgraded Hera Resource, Aurelia Managing Director, Rimas Kairaitis, said:
"We are very pleased to be reporting a substantially upgraded Hera Resource Estimate, which demonstrates the ability for the initial mine life to be expanded as exploration success continues. This Estimate represents the excellent work by the Company's geology team and lays the foundation for a significant increase in the Hera mine life. We remain optimistic about the potential for further extensions as exploration continues."
Hera is a high-grade project, with the majority of the value contained in the gold, lead and zinc mineralisation. The Hera Project comprises multiple geological lenses of gold and base metal mineraliation, some being gold rich with base metals, and others richer in base metal content. The updated Resource has been calculated over 10 discrete lenses (as summarized in Appendix 1). A breakdown of the total Resource in all confidence categories by metal content (rounded to 3 significant figures) is as follows:
- Gold: 390,000 ounces
- Silver: 3.46M ounces
- Lead: 113,000 tonnes
- Zinc: 148,000 tonnes
As with the previous Hera Resource estimate, the Resource has been reported at a "Net Smelter Return (NSR)" cut-off grade of A$125/tonne. Given the polymetallic nature of the Hera Project, an NSR is considered the best representation of the recoverable value of gold and base metal content of the Resource. Further details of the NSR calculation are included as Appendix 1 with this release, however the NSR calculation can be summarised as:
Metal grade x expected recovery (%) x expected payability (%) x Metal price: less concentrate freight and treatment charges and royalties
To view figures and resource data, please visit:
http://media.abnnewswire.net/media/en/docs/ASX-AMI-716327.pdf
About Aurelia Metals Ltd
Aurelia Metals Limited (ASX:AMI) is focused on the development and exploration of the high grade Hera-Nymagee Project in the Cobar district of NSW.
Aurelia is actively drilling the evolving copper deposit at Nymagee with the potential that the Nymagee mineralisation may evolve into another 'Cobar Giant' similar to the world class CSA copper deposit located approximately 100km north-west along strike.
Aurelia also remains active in the exploration for copper, gold and tin on a number of tenements in the Lachlan Fold Belt of NSW.
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