19th May 2008 16:31
For immediate release 19 May 2008
Templar Minerals Plc
("Templar" or the "Company")
First Gold pour at Fiji Gold Mine after recommissioning
Templar Minerals notes the announcement made by River Diamonds PLC ("River Diamonds") today confirming that its 100%-owned Vatukoula Gold Mine ("the Mine" or "Vatukoula") in Fiji has today had its first operational gold pour of 641 ounces since the Mine was placed on care and maintenance in December 2006.
Templar Minerals currently holds 285,000,000 ordinary shares in River Diamonds representing 16.9% of River Diamond's issued ordinary share capital. As announced on 8 May 2008, Templar agreed to purchase a further 143,290,000 ordinary shares in River Diamonds which when aggregated with its existing interest would take the holding to 25.42% of River Diamonds' issued ordinary share capital. This latter transaction has not yet completed and a further announcement will be made in due course.
River Diamonds made the following announcement:
River Diamonds is pleased to announce that its 100%-owned Vatukoula Gold Mine ("the Mine" or "Vatukoula") in Fiji has today had its first operational gold pour of 641 ounces since the Mine was placed on care and maintenance in December 2006.
The gold poured was from concentrates from the recommissioning of the mill's floatation, roaster and calcine circuits, which were brought on line on 8 May 2008.
This pour, which totalled 779.2 ounces of gold ore (comprising 641 ounces fine gold and 121 ounces of fine silver), is in-line with production targets and represents the final step in the recommissioning of operations at the Mine.
Gold that is currently being recovered through the mill's carbon-in-leaching circuit and accumulated on carbon will be added to the gold pours over the coming weeks.
Operations within the Mine, whilst still experiencing some inevitable "teething issues", have now reached a steady-state condition. Ore from both the underground and open pit operations is now being supplied to the mill on a daily basis. Alongside the commencement of production at Vatukoula, the Company has also recruited an experienced operational management team to complement the existing management in Fiji.
The JORC-compliant gold resources at the Mine total 16.84 million tonnes at an average grade of 9.49 grams of gold per tonne or 5.15 million ounces of gold. Currently, the Mine employs approximately 700 personnel.
David Lenigas, Executive Chairman of Templar Minerals, commented:
"This pour of 641 ounces of fine gold is the culmination of a lot of dedicated work by the entire River Diamonds team in recommissioning the Mine in a relatively short period of time and bedding down the entire process into steady state operations. I am delighted with this achievement and would like to thank all involved.
River Diamonds now looks forward to continuous gold operations from the Mine in what can reasonably be described as a very positive gold market. The Mine is an entirely unhedged operation.
The name of the Fijian operating company will be changed from Westech Gold to Vatukoula Gold Mines Limited over the coming weeks to more adequately reflect the local significance of this project to the Fijian economy."
Contacts for Templar Minerals:
|
Templar Minerals David Lenigas Ian Stalker Neil Herbert Beaumont Cornish Roland Cornish |
Tel: +44 (0) 7881 825378 Tel: + 27 11 269 4900 Tel: + 27 11 269 4900 Tel: +44 (0) 20 7628 3396 |
|
Financial Dynamics Ben Brewerton Ed Westropp |
Tel + 44 (0) 20 7831 3113 |
Qualified Person
Kiran Morzaria B.Eng (ACSM), MBA, has reviewed and approved the information on behalf River Diamonds. Kiran holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Industrial Geology) from the Camborne School of Mines and an MBA (Finance) from CASS Business School. Kiran is the Finance Director of River Diamonds. He is a fellow of the Geological Society.
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