Vatukoula Gold Mines the London listed gold miner, today published some fantastic results from recent drilling undertaken on the Prince William ore body. Just to remind people. The Vatukoula mine in Fiji boasts some of the worlds highest gold grades and for an underground mine ranks around 12th in the world in terms of its average recoverable Grades. The company has been spending considerable time re-adjusting its underground mining method, to shift more focus to footwall mining, where less waste is mined and more of a pincer movement is made on mining the actual ore body. You would think that mining this way would be obvious, except that underground mining does mean you have to develop underground access that means mining to create the circumstances operationally to actually mine. This often comes at a cost and that is often a sacrifice between mining ore and mining rock to get to the ore so as to deliver the underground equipment to the areas where the highest grades sit.
These latest results confirm what the industry already knows and that is Vatukoula still has a huge potential gold resource base to be mined where high grades are still waiting to be discovered.
It looks like the investor market that has an interest in gold is now turning its attention to gold equities and moving out of ETF's
VGM looks good value for money with these grades.
18 February 2013
Vatukoula Gold Mines plc
High Grade Drilling Intersections in the Philip Shaft area
Vatukoula Gold Mines Plc. (AIM:VGM), the AIM-listed gold producer, is pleased to announce additional high grade drilling results from the drilling campaign on the Prince William and associated ore bodies at the Company's Vatukoula gold mine in Fiji.
Highlights:
· Surface and underground drilling programmes in the area of the Philip Shaft have continued to intersect high grade extensions of known ore bodies and encountered new mineralised structures both above and below the Prince William ore body.
· Significant drill intersections from recent drilling include:
53.14 grams of gold per tonne over 1.29 metres of which one section reported 264.47 grams of gold per tonne over 0.23 metres
16.38 grams of gold per tonne over 0.42 metres
16.22 grams of gold per tonne over 0.53 metres
David Paxton, CEO of Vatukoula Gold Mines, commented:
"The positive exploration results from in and around the Philip Shaft have continued this fiscal year, with resource definition drilling confirming the strike and down dip extensions of the Prince William ore body. In addition drilling from surface encountered an additional mineralised structure approximately 200 metres above the Prince William ore body, with some exceptional grades. The results reported today are encouraging and indicate further resource upside within a currently active mining area proximal to the Philip Shaft."
Resource Definition Update
As announced in our preliminary results, published on the 21 December 2012, the resource definition drilling programme had increased our measured resource by 7% during the year ending August 2012. In the results, we stated that the drilling in the area around Philip Shaft had been extremely encouraging and the results indicated resource upside potential. Since August 2012 we have continued to drill from underground targeting potential strike and down dip extensions of the Prince William and other associated ore bodies. All of the drill holes (9 holes totalling 1,531 metres) completed in the current fiscal year intersected mineralised structures. A summary of the significant mineralised intersections from the resource definition drilling include:
Hole Number
|
Co-ordinates
|
Azimuth
|
Dip
|
Advance
|
Composite Mineralised Intersections
|
Au (g/t)
|
True
Width (m)
|
Ore Body / Structure
|
|||
(PU)
|
East
|
North
|
RL
|
From
|
To
|
||||||
14-102
|
5445
|
10654
|
9604
|
332
|
-74
|
256
|
191.50
|
191.60
|
39.51
|
0.09
|
Prince William
|
17-173
|
5296
|
11248
|
9510
|
155
|
-78
|
131
|
66.13
|
67.08
|
16.38
|
0.42
|
Prince William
|
68.87
|
69.12
|
16.95
|
0.22
|
Prince William
|
|||||||
17-176
|
5299
|
11249
|
9512
|
48
|
-7
|
122
|
49.13
|
49.38
|
11.25
|
0.23
|
carbonate stringers
|
68.51
|
68.61
|
13.39
|
0.09
|
carbonate stringers
|
|||||||
14-103
|
5446
|
10654
|
9607
|
348
|
59
|
200
|
108.64
|
108.78
|
33.95
|
0.12
|
Prince William FM1
|
191.16
|
191.33
|
16.40
|
0.12
|
Prince William FM3
|
|||||||
17-168A
|
5289
|
11252
|
9511
|
248
|
-31
|
151
|
68.06
|
68.43
|
20.14
|
0.17
|
Prince William Split
|
17-177
|
5292
|
11246
|
9511
|
138
|
-70
|
113
|
60.62
|
61.42
|
16.22
|
0.53
|
Prince William Split
|
14-108
|
5444
|
10656
|
9604
|
322
|
-41
|
249
|
27.97
|
28.08
|
14.71
|
0.09
|
Prince William Split
|
Exploration Update
Although the focus of our drilling programmes remains on resource definition, we identified an opportunity to target both peripheral mineral resources and exploration potential with one hole ("GSE185") and an associated wedge ("GSE185-A"). The original hole was 1,431 metres deep, with the wedge positioned at 482 metres below the surface.
Both the mother hole and the wedge intersected mineralisation at various depths. GSE185-A intersected significant mineralisation 200 metres above the current Prince William ore body. A composite intersection graded 53.14 g/t of Au over 1.29 metres. The current interpretation is that this mineralisation probably represents an extension of the 166N orebody. This orebody typically lies around 150 metres above the Cayzer-Prince orebody, however this intersection shows a possible further extension 200-300 metres west than the current resource model suggests.
The intersection of such a wide high grade structure in an area that is proximal to both existing infrastructure and current ore bodies is encouraging as it points to further upside in the current mineral resources. A summary of the significant mineralised intersections from the exploration drilling is shown in the following table:
Hole Number
|
Co-ordinates
|
Azimuth
|
Dip
|
Advance
|
Composite Mineralised Intersections
|
Au (g/t)
|
Width (m)
|
Ore Body / Structure
|
|||
(GSE)
|
East
|
North
|
RL
|
From
|
To
|
||||||
185
|
5796
|
10897
|
10121
|
215
|
-89
|
1431
|
522.5
|
523.6
|
15.18
|
0.16
|
N/A
|
667.3
|
667.6
|
10.96
|
0.29
|
N/A
|
|||||||
981.2
|
981.3
|
39.67
|
0.13
|
N/A
|
|||||||
185A
|
5796
|
10897
|
10121
|
215
|
-89
|
525.3
|
526.9
|
53.14
|
1.29
|
N/A
|
|
Including
|
525.3
|
525.5
|
264.47
|
0.23
|
N/A
|
||||||
539.0
|
539.2
|
0.20
|
14.62
|
N/A
|
|||||||
Qualified Person
Qualified Person Kiran Morzaria B.Eng. (ACSM), MBA, has reviewed and approved the information contained in this announcement. 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 VGM.
