Sydney - Wednesday - March 16: (RWE Australian Business News) -...

Sydney - Wednesday - March 16: (RWE Australian Business News) -
SMC Gold Ltd today announced it had continued to make good progress
towards expanding its production rate at Punitaqui, Chile, to 1500
tonnes per day of ore.
All major items of equipment required for the mill expansion
have been acquired or ordered, and deliveries are expected to meet the
company's timetable.
Civil works are well under way and consultants have completed
test drilling of the tailings dam wall which will enable the tailings
dam capacity to be increased.
The company is about halfway through a drilling program of
about 2000 metres, designed primarily to test the existence of other
blocks of economic-grade ore adjacent to Block 1 on the Cinabrio
tenements.
The program was delayed last week due to mechanical problems
with the contractor's drill rig, but has now resumed.
SMC shipped 854 Dry Metric Tonnes of concentrate during February
from its plant at Punitaqui.
The concentrate was delivered for an estimated value of
$US673,956 ($A853,000).
Average grade was 22.42 per cent copper, 3.74g/t gold and
204.72g/t silver.
Shares in SMC Gold traded steady at 9.5c today.