Sydney - Monday - December 19: (RWE Aust Business News) - SMC Gold Ltd (ASX:SMO) has a 65pc increase in total resources at its Cinabrio copper mine in Chile. The increase follows the recently reported drilling results. Total resources increased to an estimated 10.77 million tonnes at 1.43pc copper and 14g/t silver containing 165,781 tonnes of copper equivalent. "The resource upgrade is very significant in that it now equates to an in-ground value of more than $US700 million at today's prices," managing director Rob Kidd said. "Importantly, the total resource in the higher measured and indicated categories has more than doubled to 5,130,000 tonnes at 1.64pc copper and 16g/t silver containing 90,769 tonnes copper equivalent. "SMC Gold is maintaining its record for delineating additional copper resources in a very cost effective manner. "The latest exploration programme cost $US210,000, which is a discover cost of 0.16USc per lb of copper equivalent." He said SMC Gold will undertake further drilling and mine planning at Cinabrio to delineate the reserve and test the resource boundary. The budget for this work together with design and implementation for the expansion of the Punitaqui processing plant is $US1m. SMC Gold shares were up 0.6c to 10.5c. ENDS
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