8th May 2008 16:15
Templar Minerals Limited08 May 2008 For Immediate Release 8 May 2008 Templar Minerals Plc ("Templar" or the "Company") Commencement of Roaster at the Vatukoula Gold Mine in Fiji Further Open Pit Resource Identified Templar Minerals notes the announcement made by River Diamonds PLC ("RiverDiamonds") today confirming the commencement of the sulphide roaster at theVatukoula Gold Mine in Fiji and that further open pit resources have beenidentified. Templar Minerals currently holds 285,000,000 ordinary shares in River Diamondsrepresenting 16.9% of River Diamond's issued ordinary share capital. Asannounced on 25 March 2008, Templar agreed to purchase a further 143,290,000ordinary shares in River Diamonds which when aggregated with its existinginterest would take the holding to 25.42% of River Diamonds' issued ordinaryshare capital. This latter transaction has not yet completed and a furtherannouncement will be made in due course. River Diamonds made the following announcement: River Diamonds announces today that the sulphide roaster commenced processing atthe Company's 100% owned Vatukoula Gold Mine in Fiji. With the roaster start upthe Company expects the first gold pour from ongoing operations to occur overthe next week. Progress at the President Hill open cut, located near the Borthwick shaft, hascontinued, and a total of 99,600 tonnes of ore have been identified at a gradeof 6.11 grams of gold per tonne. It is expected that approximately 65,000 tonnesof overburden will be removed to access some of the ore. The ore from PresidentHill will be used to supplement the daily underground production. Currently theresources are not JORC compliant but the Company intends to bring the resourceto JORC standards over the coming months. The Company has also secured 2 Megawatts of additional power from the FijianElectricity Authority ("FEA"). The FEA are providing this power at approximatelya 30% discount to the Company's power production costs. The JORC-compliant gold resources at the Vatukoula Gold Mine total 16.84 milliontonnes at an average grade of 9.49 grams of gold per tonne or 5.15 millionounces of gold. The mine is budgeted to produce some 28,000 ounces of gold to 30June 2008 and 111,000 ounces of gold to the year ending June 2009. Currently the Vatukoula mine employs approximately 700 personnel. David Lenigas, Chairman of Templar Minerals, commented: "This is another significant milestone for the Company; with first Gold pour dueto occur within the next week we are delighted with the speed and efficiencythat this significant project has come to fruition. "The fact that we have also identified additional resources, further proves theeconomic case for the re-opening of the project and we will bring you news onour progress with this as soon as is practicable." Contacts for Templar Minerals: Templar Minerals David Lenigas, Chairman Tel: +44 (0) 7881 825378 Ian Stalker, Non Exec-Director Tel: + 27 11 783 5056 Beaumont Cornish Tel: +44 (0) 20 7628 3396 Roland Cornish Rosalind Hill Abrahams Financial Dynamics Tel + 44 (0) 20 7831 3113 Ben Brewerton Ed Westropp Qualified Person Kiran Morzaria B.Eng (ACSM), MBA, has reviewed and approved the informationcontained in this announcement. Kiran holds a Bachelor of Engineering(Industrial Geology) from the Camborne School of Mines and an MBA (Finance) fromCASS Business School. Kiran is the Finance Director of River Diamonds. He is afellow of the Geological Society. Note The resource figures as set out above are the gross resources attributable toRiver Diamonds as included in their AiM Admission Document dated 13 March 2008. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
Arc Minerals