ballarat = balla balla?, page-9

Sorry, I was out of line with the crack crack, I was being a bit cheeky ;)

The Ballarat resource was previously defined by Lihir but the company couldn't make it profitable using bulk mining techniques and the commodity prices of the time.

CGT have been doing a lot of drilling to narrow in on tasty bits and have been more conservative on their estimates.

Here is some more information on the projects resources.

-Ballarat-
Central Victoria, under the town of Ballarat. Historic production 12 Moz. Castlemaine bought the Ballarat gold project from Lihir Gold (ASX.LGL, since merged with Newcrest ASX.NCM) for $4.5m cash plus a 2.5% royalty interest in future production (capped at $50m), plus $4.1m of rehabilitation bonds, in March - May of 2010.
? Reviving the historic mine under the town of Ballarat, in Victoria.
? Resource of 1.5 Moz @ 11.8g/t [Lihir, 30 Oct 2007].
? Lihir concluded that the project will not support large scale bulk mining techniques, and is therefore not of interest to them.

CGT is targeting 50 koz/yr, at 7.5 - 8.5 g/t head grade, and $710 - 750 /oz. Given the nuggety nature of the gold and the variable quartz vein geometries, they expect to be able to make a JORC resource estimate only after exploration results can be correlated with initial mining outcomes.

After acquiring the project, Castlemaine treated Ballarat as an exploration project, ceased mining and processing, and put the mine and mill are on care and maintenance. They have been exploring to identify sufficient resources to recommence development and production, with two diamond drill rigs working underground, targeting a 50 koz per annum operation. The nuggetty quartz reefs average 8.9 g/t historically.

There are two main parallel lines of reef, running north-south:
1. Sulieman Line (the western line). 169 koz.
2. First Chance Line (the eastern line). 1,393 koz @ 9.2 g/t.

These lines of reefs are both divided into compartments defined by sub-vertical cross faults, with individually-named fault zones that run through the compartments. The compartments are, from nouth to north:
- Prince. 157 koz @ 11.6 g/t.
- Normanby. 336 koz @ 9.6 g/t.
- Soverign. 52 koz @ 8,8 g/t.
- Canton. 25 koz @ 12.0 g/t.
- Golden Point. 6 koz @ 12.7 g/t.
- Llanberris. 241 koz @ 8.5 g/t. Ore source for initial production.
- Britannia. 231 koz @ 8.5 g/t. Ore source for initial production.
- Victoria. 209 koz @ 10.7 g/t.

The Mako and Hammerhead fault zones run north-south through most of the compartements. The Basking fault runs through the Britannia compartment.

There are two main declines:
1. Sulieman decline, or upper decline. Down to 400m.
2. Woah Hawp decline, or lower decline. Down to 500m.
Both declines are moving north and are now at the edge of the highly prospective northern zones of the Ballarat East field (the Llanberris and Britannia compartments). Another 2.5 km of decline is required starting from March 2011 before production begins.