LGL's Release 30 October 2007LGL increases Ballarat East...

LGL's Release 30 October 2007

LGL increases Ballarat East resource to 1.5 million ounces

Lihir Gold Ltd (LGL) has lifted its Total Mineral Resource estimate at the Ballarat East project by 7% to 1.5 million ounces, following encouraging drilling and trial mining activities over the past year.

Importantly, this includes a 27% increase in Indicated Resource to 305,000 ounces from 241,000 ounces previously. Ore in the Indicated Resource category has increased from 560,000 tonnes to 952,000 tonnes. The average grade of the total resource has increased from 11.3 to 11.8 grams per tonne. While grade of Inferred Resource has risen from 10.9 g/t to 12.4 g/t, due to good results in deeper mineralised zones, grade of Indicated Resource has reduced from 13.4 g/t to 10.0 g/t. This was primarily because the focus of drilling efforts over the past 15 months has been to convert Inferred to Indicated Resources in the initial production zones of the mine. Drill access has therefore been limited to shallower, lower grade Inferred Resource areas accessible from the Sulieman, Prince and Woah Hawp Declines. This can be clearly seen in the long section below. The increase in resource was achieved despite the adoption of more conservative modelling parameters in the estimate which have led to much greater confidence in the resource model. For example, resources located close to old mine workings which are considered to be difficult to access, or uneconomic, have been excluded. This greater conservatism reduced the resource by approximately 66,000 ounces. The estimates assume a coarse gold upgrade of 25%, which compares to the results of test work suggesting a coarse gold upgrade of up to 50%.