Personally think there is more upside here than down. They seem to be confident with what is possibly at hand. My opinion is that it will be between 750k & 1.25m but lets wait and see. Either way there are short term gains to be had here imho.
Laguna Resources (ASX: LRC) has started field exploration at its Arqueros gold-silver project in the northern section of the Maricunga district in the Atacama Region, northern Chile.
The Maricunga Gold Belt hosts in excess of 50 million oz of gold resources and is thought to be highly prospective, with a couple of large scale feasibility studies into proposed gold developments in the province in progress, including Cerro Casale (23 million oz, Barrick Gold Corporation / Kinross), Marte-Lobo (6 million oz, Kinross) and Volcan (7 million oz Au, Andina Minerals).
Recent rises in the Laguna share price reflect the prospectivity of its Argueros project in a region littered with Tier 1 (>1million ounce) projects.
Initial field work will comprise the reopening of existing underground development for surveying, sampling and mapping of remnant ore zones with a drilling program being planned to commence in late November 2009.
This program will be followed by metallurgical testwork and the development of a conceptual mine plan, while the company hopes to generate an initial resource estimate for the project in the coming month.
The Arqueros North and South deposits were mined from 2000 to 2004 with about 278,000 ounces of gold equivalent extracted at an average gold equivalent grade of 7.1 g/t.
Gold-silver mineralisation at Arqueros occurs in an epithermal system located 20 km north of Kinross Gold Corporation’s La Coipa mine (which produces about 225,000 oz per annum gold equivalent).
Laguna is currently formulating an open cut mining “base case” for the resumption of production at Arqueros. Parameters of the base case scenario are an output rate of about 100,000-120,000 ozpa gold equivalent and a resource target of 20-40 million tonnes grading 1.5-2.0 g/t gold equivalent for an estimated contained 1-2 two million oz.
The Perth-based junior, which has an option agreement with Anglo American to acquire 100% of Arqueros, highlighted that about 135,000m of underground drilling had already been undertaken on the project.
LRC Price at posting:
2.5¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
