10th Sep 2010 10:32
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 10 September 2010
allied gold limited
("the Company")
"This press release is not for dissemination in the United States and shall not be disseminated to United States news services."
GOLD RESERVES INCREASED BY 155% to
2.15 million OUNCES AT ALLIEDS 100% OWNED SIMBERI GOLD PROJECT
Highlights
·; Extensive drilling programme over the past 18 months has resulted in a substantial increase of 1.31 million ounces of gold ore, equivalent to a 155% increase in Proven and Probable Reserves
·; Total Proven and Probable Reserves by material types are now:
§ Oxide - 26.3M/t at 1.03g/t
§ Transitional - 4.5M/t at 1.11g/t
§ Sulphide - 15.1M/t at 2.31g/t
·; Increased Reserves to underpin current Oxide plant expansion and delivery of Sulphide Pre-Feasibility Study expected to be completed by the end of this month
·; Ongoing exploration program aims to focus on testing known Sulphide and Oxide mineralisation at Sorowar, Pigiput, Pigibo and Samat which remain open
·; Group Reserves increased to 3.43 million ounces
Allied Gold (ASX:ALD, TSX:ALG, AIM:AGLD) has received new Proven and Probable Reserve Estimates for the Simberi Island gold deposits from consultants Golder Associates totalling 45.9Mt @ 1.46g/t Au for 2.15 million ounces of contained gold. This is a substantial increase of 1.31 million ounces of gold ore equivalent to a 155% increase in Reserves. Previous Proven and Probable Reserves (September 2009) were reported as 22.0 million tonnes at 1.19g/t Au for 0.84 million ounces of contained gold.
Exploration drilling completed over the past 18 months, with results previously reported to market, has identified these substantial increases in both oxide and sulphide ore types. The access to sulphide ore at the Pigiput/Pigibo deposits requires the removal of the overlying oxide and transitional ores which collectively total approximately 19Mt.
The company has budgeted exploration expenditure of A$8 million for FY 2011 to undertake 20,000 meters of Core and 40,000 meters of RC drilling. The focus will be targeting pit edge oxides at the Sorowar deposit and underlying sulphide mineralisation at Pigiput, Pigibo and Sorowar, as well as testing the possible link between the Samat North and Samat East deposits.
In order to take advantage of these additional reserves and to allow quicker access to the underlying sulphide ore, the company is currently expanding the oxide process plant from 2.0Mtpa to 3.5Mtpa. In addition to these sulphide Reserves, the Sorowar deposit has approximately 14Mt of ore (including minor transitional and sulphides) that are yet to be mined. On completion of the oxide expansion in 2011, this will equate to a minimum of 10 year oxide mine life to produced annualised average production of approximately 100,000 ounces.The sulphide Reserves at Pigiput/Pigibo with a minor contribution from the Samat deposit amounts to approximately 15Mt of ore. A pre-feasibility study on the development of the sulphide Mineral Resources will be completed in September 2010. This study is evaluating a 1.5Mtpa sulphide operation that involves roasting of a concentrate to produce an annualised life of mine average of approximately 90,000 ounces over 10 years.
The Mineral Reserves and the Inferred Resources within the pit design, categorised by material type are summarised in the table on the next page.
Proven and Probable gold Reserves (JORC Compliant) for the group totals 3.43 million ounces.
The full release can be viewed as a link to this announcement and on the Company's website.
http://www.rns-pdf.londonstockexchange.com/rns/4871S_-2010-9-10.pdf
For more details please contact:
Simon Jemison Investors and Media (Aust) + 61 (0) 418 853 922
Rebecca Greco Investors (North America) +1 416 839 8610
David Simonson Merlin PR (UK) + 44 (0) 20 7726 8400
Beaumont Cornish Limited
Roland Cornish
Beaumont Cornish Limited
T: +44 (0) 20 7628 3396
Competent Persons
The information in this Announcement that relates to Mineral Exploration results and Mineral Resources, together with any related assessments and interpretations, have been verified by and approved for release by Mr C R Hastings, MSc, BSc, M.Aus.I.M.M., a qualified geologist and full-time employee of the Company. Mr Hastings has sufficient experience which is relevant to the style of mineralisation and type of deposit under consideration and to the activity which he is undertaking to qualify as a Competent Person as defined in the 2004 Edition of the "Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves". Mr Hastings consents to the inclusion of the information contained in this release in the form and context in which it appears.
The information in this Stock Exchange Announcement that relates to Mineral Reserves has been compiled by Mr J Battista of Golder Associates who is a Member of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. Mr Battista has had sufficient experience in Ore Resource estimation relevant to the style of mineralisation and type of deposit under consideration to qualify as a Competent Person as defined in the 2004 Edition of the "Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves". Mr Battista consents to the inclusion of the information contained in this release in the form and context in which it appears.
The technical information in the Announcement was prepared under the "Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves" (JORC).
Allied owns 100% of the Simberi Island gold project.
Glossary of terms used in the Announcement:
19. A 'Mineral Resource' is a concentration or occurrence of material of intrinsic economic interest in or on the Earth's crust in such form, quality and quantity that there are reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction. The location, quantity, grade, geological characteristics and continuity of a Mineral Resource are known, estimated or interpreted from specific geological evidence and knowledge. Mineral Resources are sub-divided, in order of increasing geological confidence, into Inferred, Indicated and Measured categories.
20. An 'Inferred Mineral Resource' is that part of a Mineral Resource for which tonnage, grade and mineral content can be estimated with a low level of confidence. It is inferred from geological evidence and assumed but not verified geological and/or grade continuity. It is based on information gathered through appropriate techniques from locations such as outcrops, trenches, pits, workings and drill holes which may be limited or of uncertain quality and reliability.
21. An 'Indicated Mineral Resource' is that part of a Mineral Resource for which tonnage, densities, shape, physical characteristics, grade and mineral content can be estimated with a reasonable level of confidence. It is based on exploration, sampling and testing information gathered through appropriate techniques from locations such as outcrops, trenches, pits, workings and drill holes. The locations are too widely or inappropriately spaced to confirm geological and/or grade continuity but are spaced closely enough for continuity to be assumed.
22. A 'Measured Mineral Resource' is that part of a Mineral Resource for which tonnage, densities, shape, physical characteristics, grade and mineral content can be estimated with a high level of confidence. It is based on detailed and reliable exploration, sampling and testing information gathered through appropriate techniques from locations such as outcrops, trenches, pits, workings and drill holes. The locations are spaced closely enough to confirm geological and grade continuity.
Reserves - The portion of the Mineral Resources which can be extracted from the Earth at a profit.
Proven Reserves - Ore reserves for which: (a) the quantity is computed from dimensions revealed in outcrops, trenches, workings or drill holes, and grade is computed from the results of detailed sampling; and (b) the sites for inspection, sampling and measurement are spaced so closely and the geologic character is so well defined that size, shape, depth and mineral content of reserves are well established.
Probable Reserves - Ore reserves for which quantity and grade are computed from information similar to that used for proven reserves, but the sites for inspection, sampling and measurement are farther apart or are otherwise less adequately spaced. The degree of assurance, although lower than that for proven reserves, is high enough to assume geological continuity between points of observation.
Tonnage - An expression of the amount of material of interest irrespective of the units of measurement (which should be stated when figures are reported)
Grade - Any physical or chemical measurement of the characteristics of the
Analysis (Value) material of interest in samples or product
Cut off grade - The lowest grade, or quality, of mineralised material that qualifies as economically mineable and available in a given deposit. May be defined on the basis of economic evaluation, or on physical or chemical attributes that define an acceptable product specification
Mineralisation - Any single mineral or combination of minerals occurring in a mass, or deposit, of economic interest
Others
Assay - The proportion of a particular metal (eg Au and Ag) in a sample derived by laboratory analytical techniques.
Analysis limits of detection for Au is
Simberi mineralisation types are:
Oxide - extremely weathered material (cyanide leach recoveries > 90%), 0.5 g/t Au cutoff
Transitional - distinctly weathered material (cyanide leach recoveries 50-90%), 0.5 g/t Au cutoff
Sulphide - Slightly weathered to fresh material (cyanide leach recoveries generally
Ounce - 1 troy ounce = 31.10348 grams
Tonnes - Are estimated on a dry basis and defined as a measurement of mass equal to 1000kg which is equivalent to 2204.622 pounds.
Tuff - A rock composed of pyroclastic materials that have been ejected from a volcano. In many instances these fragments are still hot when they land, producing a "welded" rock mass.
Mineral Resource estimate - An estimate of tonnage and grade (mineral content) of a deposit by a variety of techniques including geometrical classical methods and or geostatistical methods.
Mt - Million Tonnes
Moz - Million Ounces
Andesite - A fine-grained, extrusive igneous rock composed mainly of plagioclase with other minerals such as hornblende, pyroxene and biotite.
Ordinary kriging (OK) - is a geostatistical approach to modeling. Instead of weighting nearby data points by some power of their inverted distance, OK relies on the spatial correlation structure of the data to determine the weighting values. This is a more rigorous approach to modeling, as correlation between data points determines the estimated value at an unsampled point.
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