Exeter resumes drilling and continues infrastructure studies at Caspiche
Project, Chile
The drilling program has two objectives: firstly to define the outer limits of the deposit, beyond the drill holes completed to date, and secondly, to in-fill drill the higher grade central zone to bring it up to an "indicated resource" category. The first objective is important as the deposit appears to be open to the southwest and to depth. Furthermore, drill hole CSD42 drilled last season, intersected gold mineralization 400 metres ("m") (1,312 feet ("ft")) west of the main zone, indicating the potential for a second porphyry body. Other targets also warrant drilling as possible satellite deposits to the Caspiche Central deposit.
The purpose of the in-fill drilling is to confirm the integrity of the coherent central zone that contains approximately 66 percent of the inferred gold-copper resource in 50 percent of the tonnage. The Company is of the view that this zone of elevated grades will be a key factor in conceptual mine development studies. The infill drilling will also provide substantial material for metallurgical testwork on both oxide and sulphide mineralization.
Two drill rigs are now on site, each with a depth capacity in excess of 1,500 m (4,920 ft). Two additional rigs are contracted to arrive later in October. Drilling results will be released as they become available with the goal being to update the NI43-101 compliant mineral resource estimate in Q3-2010.
Exeter's Chairman, Yale Simpson, said "Our prime objective is to advance the metallurgical, infrastructure and engineering programs that were initiated last season. The closer we can advance such studies to pre-feasibility standards, the higher the level of confidence in the project, hence increased value to our shareholders. Our current budget for the program is
"We are fortunate that there are other projects in the region advancing towards development, or are being considered for expansion. Cost estimating should therefore be considerably easier than several years ago. In addition to building our own expertise, Exeter has contracted well respected engineering and metallurgical groups to perform these studies."
Samples from the 1.6 million ounce gold oxide zone* were tested earlier this year for their amenability to conventional heap leaching. Initial column leach tests on agglomerated "1/2" crush size material gave rapid gold recoveries of 77-84%. Six large diameter holes totalling 800 m (2,625 ft) will provide coarser material to investigate crush size - recovery relationships and kinetics for preliminary heap leach design criteria.
Fourteen lengthy intercepts of sulphide mineralization, representative of the additional resource outlined in the NI 43-101 compliant resource estimate announced in
NCL Ingenieria y Construcciones of
Amendment to NI43-101 Compliant Resource Estimate
Validation by Exeter of the recent AMEC International (
The re-estimated inferred silver resource associated with the project is calculated as 40 million ounces of silver at a grade of 1.12 ppm. This represents a 4% decrease in the contained gold equivalent ounces calculated by Exeter. Tables 1 and 2 below provide updated information relating to the inferred resource estimates announced on
Exeter and AMEC do not consider the decrease in the silver resource to be a material change to the project as AMEC did not include silver in their gold equivalent calculations nor in their marginal cost mining scenarios.
TABLE 1 Caspiche Inferred Mineral Resource Estimate
------------------------------------------------------------------------- Material AMEC Million Gold Gold Silver Silver Gold metric (g/t) (million (g/t) (million Equivalent tons ounces) ounces) Cut-off(xx) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oxide 0.2 100 0.50 1.6 1.01 3 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sulphide 0.3 1,017 0.55 18.0 1.14 37 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Totals 1,117 0.55 19.6 1.12 40 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------- Material Copper Copper EXETER EXETER (%) (billion Gold Gold pounds) Equivalent Equivalent (g/t)(xxx) (million ounces) (xxx) ------------------------------------------------------- Oxide 0.5 1.7 ------------------------------------------------------- Sulphide 0.22 4.84 0.94 30.7 ------------------------------------------------------- Totals 0.90 32.4 -------------------------------------------------------
TABLE 2 Caspiche Inferred Mineral Resource Estimate
------------------------------------------------------------------------- Material AMEC Million Gold Gold Silver Silver Gold metric (g/t) (million (g/t) (million Equivalent tons ounces) ounces) Cut-off(xx) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sulphide 0.9 499 0.78 12.5 1.39 22 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------- Material Copper Copper EXETER EXETER (%) (billion Gold Gold pounds) Equivalent Equivalent (g/t)(xxx) (million ounces) (xxx) ------------------------------------------------------- Sulphide 0.3 3.30 1.31 21.1 -------------------------------------------------------
About Exeter
Exeter Resource Corporation is a Canadian mineral exploration company focused on the discovery and development of gold and silver properties in
On the Caspiche Project in
On its Cerro Moro Project in
No site work is planned on the Don Sixto gold-silver project in
*The Oxide portion of the inferred resource associated with the Caspiche deposit is
(xx)AMEC chose to report the contained inferred resource above a Au equivalent cutoff. For this they used prices of US$825/oz for Au and
(xxx)Gold ("Au") equivalence for copper ("Cu") and silver ("Ag") was calculated by Exeter using assumed metal prices of US$800/ounce ("oz") for Au, US$12/oz for Ag and US$2/pound ("lb") for Cu. The formula to calculate Au equivalence for Cu was pounds of Cu multiplied by 2 and divided by 800; Au equivalence for Ag was calculated using the formula oz of Ag multiplied by 12 and divided by 800, and in both cases assumes 100% recovery. Reported grades and metric tons have been rounded (see news release NR 9-19 dated
(xxxx)Inferred mineral resource estimate of 1,098 Mt containing 371,000 ounces gold at a grade of 10.5 g/t and 19.2 million ounces silver at a grade of 545 g/t for 646,000 ounces gold equivalent at a grade of 18 g/t gold equivalent. Gold equivalent is calculated by dividing the silver assay result by 70, adding it to the gold value and assuming 100% metallurgical recovery (see news release NR 9-14 dated
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EXETER RESOURCE CORPORATION Bryce Roxburgh President and CEO
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For further information: For further information: B. Roxburgh, President or Rob Grey, VP Corporate Communications, Tel: (604) 688-9592, Fax: (604) 688-9532, Toll-free: 1-888-688-9592; Suite 1260, 999 West Hastings St., Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6C 2W2, [email protected]
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