24th Mar 2016 07:49
LONDON (Alliance News) - Polymetal International PLC Thursday said both its ore reserves and mineral resources declined in 2015, adding it will continue brownfield exploration work this year in search of more high quality reserves to replenish them.
The miner operating in Russia said its gold and silver ore reserves fell by 4% during 2015 to 21.0 million ounces of gold equivalent, mainly due to the "unfavourable movement" in the gold to silver ratio.
Polymetal stressed that all the ore reserves that were depleted from actual mining activities in the year were replenished by resource-to-reserve conversion at Kyzyl and fresh discoveries at Dukat hub and the Omolon hub.
Mineral resources, which are additional to ore reserves, fell 12% in 2015 to 12.8 million ounces of gold equivalent after resources at Kyzyl were upgraded to reserves. New material additions from Dukat hub, Albazino, and Omolon hub did not to fully compensate for the resources lost at Kyzyl.
The grade of the company's ore reserves also fell in 2015 by 3% to 4.2 grammes of gold equivalent per tonne of ore, but the average grade of the mineral resources increased by 15% in the year to 4.8 grammes of gold equivalent per tonne.
Polymetal said its drilling volumes, the amount of exploration drilling carried out in the year, fell by 14% to 232.0 kilometres after the miner completed major drilling campaigns at Tarutin, Viksha and Albazino underground in 2014.
Polymetal said it continues to use a gold price assumption of USD1,100 per ounce and a silver price assumption of USD15 per ounce to calculate the value of its resource and reserve estimates, which is lower than the assumptions last year of USD1,200 per gold ounce and USD17 per silver ounce.
"I am very happy that our key mines - Dukat, Omolon, and Albazino - all managed to largely replace mineral inventory ounces through exploration in 2015," said Vitaly Nesis, chief executive of the company. "We look forward to 2016 when we expect that continued spending on brownfield exploration will yield more high-quality reserves".
By Joshua Warner; [email protected]; @JoshAlliance
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