LHG Alan Roberts adds 5mill to reserves

INTERVIEW:Lihir Gold Flags 5 Million MT Reserve Find By Mid-03

Kalgoorlie, Australia, Aug. 7 (Dow Jones) - Australian listed company, Lihir Gold Ltd. (A.LIH), said Wednesday it is hoping to upgrade its gold reserves by five million ounces by the middle of 2003.
The reserves will come from the northwestern zone of the Lienetz orebody on the Lihir Island of Papua New Guinea, which could be linked to the Kapit prospect, Lihir chief executive Alan Roberts told Dow Jones Newswires Wednesday.

"We hope to find five million ounces, most probably by the middle of next year," he said.

Lihir Gold is a single mine operator, Lihir with current reserves standing at 15 million ounces.

Reserves are more definite measures that miners can achieve, whereas resources are closer to estimations.

Roberts said he hopes the company could find continuous mineralization between the northwestern zone of Lienetz to Kapit, the latter of which could yield an orebody, he said.

"We are pretty confident that in time, we will show that we will have an orebody in Kapit, just like what we have in Minifie and Lienetz."

Lihir has been mining the Minifie orebody for years and will start on Lienetz in 2005.

In late July, when the company announced its first half production, it also issued the best drilling results of very high-grade intersection of 14 meters at 341 grams of gold in a metric ton of ore at Lienetz.

With a resource base of 34 million tons, Roberts said Lihir doesn't need any more resources and prefers to take some time with its drilling so it can discover reserves.

Gold Output At 647,942 Ounces In 2001

In 2001, the company produced a record 647,942 ounces of gold, and Roberts forecast late last month that it will produce 630,000 ounces this year.

The latest figure would rank Lihir as Australia's third-largest listed gold company by production behind AurionGold Ltd. (A.AOR) and Newcrest Mining Ltd. ( A.NEW).

Roberts is sticking to his earlier comments that the company will also upgrade reserves in the September quarter and most of that will come from further drill results from the northwestern extension of Lienetz.

For instance, if the upgrade is 2 million ounces, most of it will come from Lienetz, he said.

Roberts is mystified by the current weakness in Lihir's share price, despite the recent steadiness in the international gold market.

"We are surprised that our share price has gone down," Roberts said.

When spot gold rallied to US$331/oz on June 4, Lihir's shares rocketed to around A$1.60-A$1.65 a share, he said.

However, with the current gold price recovering from a recent low of US$299/oz to around US$306/oz, Lihir's shares have fallen to close at A$1.09 Tuesday, he said.

Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto PLC (RTP) owns a 16% stake in Lihir, while a mix of American, European and Asian institutions own 50%, with the largest institutional stakeholder based in London, said Roberts.

He was speaking on the sidelines of the 10th annual Diggers and Dealers conference in Kalgoorlie which ends Wednesday.




Wong Chia Peck, Dow Jones Newswires; 61-414-906-860
chia- [email protected]