JORC compliant resource of 373,398 tonnes (t) @ 2.77 g/t gold (Au) for 33,221 ounces (oz) confirmed at Ramornie North and Sarah.
Open pit optimisation confirms a mining plan of 111,206t @ 3.62 g/t Au for 12,943 oz.
Open pit mining is scheduled to commence in early November 2010.
Range River Gold Ltd (ASX:RNG) confirms that JORC compliant resources have been determined for Ramornie North and Sarah deposits.
The Managing Director Rick Watsford commented:
The determination of JORC compliant resources and mining plan for the development of the Ramornie North and Sarah deposits at Mt Morgans is an historic event.
These are the first deposits to have been identified by Range’s geological personnel and brought into the production plan.
The acquisition of Mt Morgans was based on the evaluation that the Mt Morgans camp had the potential to deliver significant high grade gold resource ounces over and above the identified deposits. The successful exploration and addition to the production plan of Ramornie North and Sarah is the first tangible steps in the delivery of our faith in this camp.
It is also the first tangible steps in the delivery of the plan to increase production from a nominal 40,000 oz Au pa to 100,000 oz Au pa within five years.
Further drilling will be undertaken with a view to establishing the extent of the strike length of both deposits as both are open along strike and at depth.
RNG announced on the 9 September 2010 the results of an initial drilling program of theRamornie North and Sarah deposits at Mt Morgans. A preliminary open pit optimisation study was undertaken on the results of the initial drilling program. This resulted in the reporting of a target mineral inventory in the range of 13,155 oz Au to 13,829 oz Au at a 0.8 g/t Au cutoff.
As advised, further drilling was being undertaken and the new results would be incorporated into a new open pit optimisation study on the deposits.
The JORC compliant resources based upon the extra drilling have been determined. Based on these resource estimates a revised open pit optimisation study has been completed. The results of these studies are summarised below.
JORC Resource Estimate
Reverse Circulation (RC) drilling programs completed since July at the Mt Morgans Operations has led to the definition of the Sarah and Ramornie North zones.
These zones are similar to the Ramornie/Transvaal mineralisation and have been discovered as part of the ongoing exploration program along the major mineralised trends at Mt Morgans. Ore zones comprise strongly sheared and altered basalts together with pyritic quartz veining.
Drilling was carried out on 20m spaced lines on both prospects and down to 10m spacing on some sections of the Ramornie North zone. The resource was modelled using sectional interpretation of the drilling data and then the creation of three dimensional wireframes of the ore zones. An inverse distance estimate was run and the resource is reported using a 0.5 g/t Au lower cutoff.
Prospect Indicated Inferred Total Open Pit Optimisation Study
The open pit optimisation study for the resource indicates that two pits are viable that include both the Ramornie North Sarah resources. A total of 111,206t @ 3.62 g/t Au for 12,943 ounces at a 1.5 g/t Au cutoff would be within the pit designs for these deposits. Approval is imminent to commence mining.
These pits will operate in conjunction with the recently commenced Craic underground mine to provide multiple ore sources from the Mt Morgans project.
Future Work
RC drill programs will continue to define the mineralised zones at both deposits with a view to extending the resource and to also upgrade significant volumes of inferred and unclassified material to indicated.
