Document 3-203692-E dated 30-Apr-2003 Third Quarter Activities Report
Part A (entered 10:25 am)
BALLARAT GOLDFIELDS NL 2003-04-30 ASX-SIGNAL-G
HOMEX - Melbourne
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REPORT FOR THE QUARTER ENDED 31ST MARCH 2003
SIGNIFICANT HIGHLIGHTS
* Substantial new Gold Potential identified at Ballarat.
* Completion of the first stage of the geological model over a 3.5 x
3.5km square area from Ballarat East to West, has identified
additional prospective targets close to the old Ballarat East field.
* Successful completion of a 584m exploration trench between East and
West Ballarat has identified the presence of a major anticline (the
Yarrowee Creek line). This considerably upgrades the prospectivity in
an area previously thought to be barren. Located under alluvial
sediments, the Yarrowee line would have been masked from surface
prospecting. To date there has been no drill exploration along the
Yarrowee Creek line or any evidence of historical workings.
* An external advisory panel, of geological and mining experts has
been established to review and comment on our work plan and outcomes.
This panel has met and begun its review of the geological model.
* The sale of small shareholdings has been successfully completed,
reducing the company register from approximately 8,900 to 4,300
Shareholders. This will significantly reduce future shareholder
administration costs.
* Successful completion of the sale of Highlake Resources. BGF will
participate in a 1% royalty on any future production.
* Finalisation of sale of Oztrak. BGF will participate in up to 55%
of any future recovery from legal proceedings still ongoing in
Germany.
* All employees are now based at the mine site offices off Brittain
Street, Ballarat.
MORE TO FOLLOW
Part B (entered 02-May-2003 02:42 pm)
BALLARAT GOLDFIELDS NL 2003-04-30 ASX-SIGNAL-G
HOMEX - Melbourne
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
EXPLORATION
SUMMARY
During the quarter, the Company's new geological team continued the
work program previously set down. The resulting geological model has
significant new features which will enable us to complete the
Ballarat field re-targeting. Additional work included the digital
reconstruction of stopes at the Llanberris, First Chance and Last
Chance mines, which represents 600m of the 3.5km strike length of the
Ballarat East field. In summary, the program has provided BGF with
the following:
1. The recognition of a further anticline between East and West (fig
1). The importance of this is due to the well recognised relationship
between gold bearing structures and the steeply dipping eastern limbs
of regional anticlines. This significantly upgrades the exploration
potential in an area which has not undergone any previous
exploration. At least 4 significant leather jacket faults which were
identified in the trench, project into the new anticline on the
Yarrowee Creek Line.
2. The newly identified cyclic periodicity of the rock packages
explains why an area immediately west of the Ballarat East field (fig
2 & 4), previously interpreted as the favourable eastern limb of the
anticline, is in reality a minor fold in the western limb of the
anticline. This region had confounded geologists and failed to
deliver material economic value.
3. In addition the model now validates a new interpretation the
Sulieman Line (first postulated by A.W Strange, 1970's) highlighting
an area of outstanding geological potential for new gold
mineralisation targets within 300m of the old Ballarat East mines.
(fig 1, 2, & 3)
4. Routine assaying of the trench, (60% of sample assays completed to
date) has shown gold is present; with the most significant assay
values ranging from 1.03 - 2.77 g/t.
GEOLOGICAL TRENCH
Background
At the early stages of reviewing the regional geology over BGF's
Ballarat Licenses, it was recognised that there was insufficient data
to make a comprehensive geological interpretation between the
historically mined fields of Ballarat East and Ballarat West. Most of
the previous interpretations (fig. 4) identified the presence of a
large anticline between the two fields, which had significant
negative implications in regard to the likely potential of the whole
field and where drilling should initially be focused. To resolve this
issue, a 584m trench, augmented with outcrop mapping was dug to
uncover the folding pattern and any west dipping faults (the hosts of
the leatherjacket style of ore body). The resulting spatial data has
enabled much greater detailed interpretation concerning the size and
location of the geological potential within BGF's Ballarat licenses.
RESULTS
The results from the geological mapping of the trench were combined
with mapping of an adjacent road cutting, to produce a cross-section
totalling 834m, of the 1.6km section between Ballarat East and
Ballarat West. The mapped data effectively changes all previous
interpretations, with an apparent regular cyclicity to the fold
pattern identified, enabling the interpretation between Ballarat East
and Ballarat West to be completed. The resulting interpretation is
shown in figures 2 & 5. The relative position of the interpretation
shown in figure one is represented by a black line which extends
above the present day topography.
The trench occupies a section of ground where the shallow gravels and
Ordovician sediments were prospected at the early stages of
Ballarat's mining history. Only very low levels of gold production
were ever recorded from this area. Mapping from the trench revealed a
large westerly dipping sequence of sandstones, siltstones and shales,
with some minor folding, and the presence of four large west dipping
faults. The westerly dipping sequence identifies that immediately to
the west of the Ballarat East field is a major fold. This observation
is of significance as most of the mineralisation throughout Ballarat
has been dominated by the intersection of large west dipping faults
and easterly dipping sediments. This result helps explain why much of
the area has not returned significant gold production historically.
Within the last 50m of the trench, the sediments changed from west
dipping to east dipping. The presence of a west dipping fault at this
location was associated with a 2m wide quartz vein, and up to 3m of
the surrounding host rock contained weathered pyrite. The presence of
pyrite is considered important as alteration of this type is very
prominent around the high grade intersections from drill core at
Ballarat East.
The trench could not continue any further, as the remaining
Ordovician aged sediments are covered by recent alluvial sediments to
a depth of greater than 10m (possibly up to 50m), before reaching the
basalt covered plateau of the Ballarat West field. From the
additional factual information from Ballarat East and Ballarat West,
a pattern of major fold axis changing the dip of the sediments every
500 to 600m is apparent. This interpretation is shown in figures 2 &
5.
A key feature about the interpretation is the location of the
favourable geology for the formation of significant quartz hosted
gold deposits. The historical research has shown that up to 60% of
the ounces produced from Ballarat East (table 1) came from the west
dipping faults, which pass through an east dipping sedimentary
package (known as a leatherjacket style of orebody). The areas where
this dominantly occurs are shown in red on figure 5. Some of the
leatherjacket styles of orebodies, at Ballarat West, were not mined
as their grade at significant depths were reportedly not high enough
to sustain production at the time. Essentially, it has been
identified at Ballarat West that a number of shallow leatherjacket
style orebodies were mined and some leatherjacket style quartz veins
were identified but not mined at depth at Ballarat West. These
orebody types in Ballarat East are found to have an average recovered
grade of 9.3g/t, and are generally large in character, typically
ranging from 3m to 40m in thickness. They are considered to be
amenable to modern mining techniques and make up the majority of the
exploration potential throughout the Ballarat field.
This interpretation of an easterly dipping section of sediments
underneath shallow alluvial cover between Ballarat East and Ballarat
West is very significant as it identifies an area of potential within
favourable geology, which has not been explored, either historically
or in more recent times.
The geology identified in this cross-section has now been
extrapolated in 3D across the field to produce a complete 3D
geological model. Key target locations, along with their potential
sizes are being identified during this process. This geological
interpretation and resulting exploration potential will undergo
external review by our advisory panel. Following this we anticipate
releasing a summary of the field potential for Gold Mineralisation in
early May.
MODEL CONSTRUCTION
Additional modelling includes the reconstruction of stopes at the
Llanberris, First Chance and Last Chance mines, which represents 600m
of the 3.5km strike length of the Ballarat East field. These stope
shapes provide an important view of the orebody sizes that exist at
Ballarat, and will form part of a scoping study which aims to
identify the likely cost of mining these orebodies using current
mining methods.
Historical production records were reviewed in detail to produce a
breakdown, where possible, of the historical production from each
orebody type. This work was undertaken to enable a better estimate of
the likely size of each orebody type and also identify which orebody
types are the most significant for BGF to explore for. This work is
summarized in table 1 below.
OREBODY TYPES TONNES OZ GRADE
MINED RECOVERED RECOVERED %
LEATHERJACKET 1,470,594 438,767 9.28 58.99%
VERTICAL LODE 559,388 170,691 9.49 22.44%
FAVOURABLE BEDS 232,504 87,950 11.77 9.33%
FOLD RELATED 37,268 11,734 9.79 1.50%
UNCLASSIFIED 193,051 56,254 9.06 7.74%
COMBINED TOTAL 2,492,804 765,396 9.55 100%
Total underground
production Ballarat
East* 1,304,247
Production not allocated 538,851
TABLE 1. Breakdown of production by orebody type for the Ballarat
East field. *For the purposes of this study, the Ballarat East field
is taken to be a 3.5km strike length where the larger mining
companies operated. This extends from the Woah Hawp Canton mine in
the south to the Victoria United mine in the north. (Excluding
alluvial production).
Orebody Type Descriptions:
Leatherjacket - Quartz hosted gold deposits, associated with westerly
dipping (typically 40 to 50 degrees), north-south striking faults.
Vertical lode - Near vertically oriented quartz hosted gold deposits
that are sub parallel to the sedimentary rocks. They are typically
bound by westerly dipping faults at the top and bottom.
Favourable beds - Ore mined along a particular narrow slate bed.
Quartz bodies along these horizons could be of various orientations.
Historically, the most important favourable bed was named the
Indicator Bed.
Fold related - Ore mined at the apex of an anticline or syncline
(where the sediments have folded and changed their orientation).
CORPORATE
This quarter saw finalisation on a number of initiatives committed to
in the 2002 prospectus. Work is proceeding to plan and is on budget.
The following achievements for the March Quarter include:
* BGF has finalised the relocation of its corporate office to the
mine site.
* Successful finalisation of the sale of technology subsidiary
Oztrak. Importantly, the terms of the sale entitles BGF to 55% (less
costs up to 15%) of the proceeds recovered from the substantial claim
against BSK GmbH Germany.
* Successful sale of the Highlake tenements. The sale removed
exploration funding commitments of approximately $680,000 per annum,
and enables BGF to focus on its core gold tenements around the
Ballarat gold fields. The sale entitles BGF to receive a 1% royalty
of gold recovered from the tenements at no future cost to BGF. As a
result BGF has written down the carrying value of its tenements by
approximately $3.7 million.
* The sale of small shareholdings has been successfully completed,
reducing the company register from 8,900 to 4,300 Shareholders. This
will halve future administration costs.
The stock was sold at market through Bell Potter Securities,
returning a net average price to shareholders of 3.716 cents. The
average holding of these shareholders was $69, thus enabling them to
recover their funds at no brokerage cost.
A total of 2,152 shareholders with unmarketable parcels elected to
retain their shareholding in BGF.
BGF is now solely concentrated on its Ballarat and Berringa gold
licenses. Cash at the end of the quarter was $1.6 million.
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