Monday, September 27, 2010
Integra Mining pours first gold at Randalls
by Proactive Investors
Integra Mining (ASX: IGR) has become Australia?s newest gold producer with the pouring of the first gold at its Randalls Gold Project announced today, under budget and on time.
The discovery area represents just a small portion of a reconnaissance aircore drilling gold anomaly measuring 2km by 2.5km, providing significant scope for further exploration success, providing further upside potential.
The transition to producer, makes it one of the highest grade open pit mines in terms of scale in Australia.
Randalls is located 60 kilometres east of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. Very low cash costs of A$574 per ounce will place it amongst the most profitable of its peer group with very modest on-going capital requirement, providing an almost A$800 per ounce margin at current gold process.
The first gold bar of 1.78 kilos was poured on the afternoon of Friday 24th September at the new Salt Creek process facility which was completed on-time and under-budget.
The process facility will initially process ore mined at Integra?s two Phase 1 open pits, Salt Creek and Maxwells.
Integra will focus on stabilising the Salt Creek processing facility into steady-state production ramping up to annual production of 90,000 ounces per annum for the first 15 months of production on an open pit head grade of 3.6 g/t gold.
Chris Cairns, managing director, said ?the first gold pour is the culmination of what has been a fantastic exploration success story.?
?The path to production has not been an easy one, the transition to producer status with the highest grade open pit production for this scale of operation in Australia is a very satisfying achievement."
?We believe Phase 1 is the just the beginning for the Randalls Gold Project and that there is substantially more gold to be found both in and around our existing deposits and in new discovery opportunities such as Majestic."
"The company?s growth trajectory has been very steep and we are now able to fund continued growth through the very strong cash flows the Randalls Gold Project will deliver.?
Studies are underway for the commencement of early underground production from the highgrade Santa and Cock-eyed Bob gold deposits with underground production from the highgrade Maxwells gold deposit to commence after open pit production has been completed.
The introduction of early underground production is expected to take annual gold production above 100,000 ounces per year without a process plant upgrade.
In the medium-term, Integra is targeting a 50% process plant throughput upgrade to 1.2Mt per year in conjunction with Phase 2 open pit production and underground production to lift total production to +140,000 ounces per year.
The strong outlook for Phase 2 has been underpinned by bumper results from drilling at the Santa deposit, which is rapidly emerging as a source of both open pit and underground production.
The results, which recently included 4m at 34.1g/t gold, 4m at 17.4g/t gold and 2.1m at 46.7g/t gold, have demonstrated high-grade gold mineralisation extends over a 2km strike length and to a depth of 400m. It remains open along strike and at depth.
Drilling at the Maxwells and Cock-Eyed Bob deposits has also revealed strong potential for high-grade underground production below the planned open pits.
Recent results from deep drilling at Cock-Eyed Bob include 8.8m at 16.24g/t gold, 4.2m at 14.99g/t gold, 3m at 11.54g/t gold and 9m at 4.58g/t gold.
Integra believes there is no geologic reason why the high-grade gold mineralisation at the Maxwells, Cock-Eyed Bob and Santa gold deposits does not continue to 1km depth or beyond.
The company anticipates that Phase 2 production will also incorporate the recent Majestic gold discovery which is demonstrating excellent potential as an additional open pit.
Recent results from Majestic include 29m at 4.62g/t gold, 18m at 3.90g/t gold, 21m at 3.88g/t gold and 22m at 3.58g/t gold.
The discovery area represents just a small portion of a reconnaissance aircore drilling gold anomaly measuring 2km by 2.5km, providing significant scope for further exploration success.
The host of high-grade results from Maxwells, Cock-Eyed Bob, Santa and Majestic should pave the way for a substantial resources upgrade later this year.
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