Annual report for the Spring Hill Project to 31 December 1995

Abstract

The current group of 80 mineral tenements covers an area previously occupied by EL 4793 and EL 4873. These tenements were extensively explored for gold by Ross Mining from 1988 to 1994. This work involved geophysical surveying, mapping, geochemical sampling, drilling, gridding, metalurgical testing and petrological analysis. During 1995 work involved pre feasibility water quality monitoring, metallurgical testwork, reserve estimations and scoping studies. Metallurgical tests showed that the gold bearing sulphide mineralisation can be classed as free milling. The column leach tests carried out showed that unlike the oxide and transition material the sulphide material is not suited to heap leach processing techniques. the gold resource at Spring Hill was estimated to be 5.74 Mt at 1.29 grams per tonne Au using a 0.7 cut-off. If dump leach mining methods are used then the total gold resource would be 12.75 Mt at 0.80 grams per tonne Au for a 0.2 grams per tonne Au cut-off. Scoping studies came to the conclusion that extraction by open cut methods is essential with the option of either heap leach treatment or more conventional CIP milling technology