www.tanami.com.au
Tanami Gold NL is an Australia-based company engaged in gold mining and mineral exploration. Tanami Gold NL's gold operations are located approximately 30 kilometres west of the Western Australia-Northern Territory border. The Coyote mine once seen as a "narrow vein gold deposit" is proving to be anything but that with mining revealing mineralised zones up to 5 metres wide and in deeper diamond drill holes, widths to 10 metres. Grades over these widths have averaged around 7-12 grams per tonne Au. The Company is currently in the early stages of developing the main Gonzales lode underground and the P2 ore-body in the open pit is planning to initially target 50-70,000 ounces per annum.
Tanami Gold sees Groundrush open pit adding to Resource base at Central Tanami
Tanami Gold (ASX: TAM) has returned its Western Tanami operations to full operational mode following disruptions due to wet season rains, with Bald Hill open pit back to normal and the Coyote treatment plant running at capacity.
The company also said the Tanami Road from Alice Springs has been re-opened and has resulted in fuel and freight deliveries returning to normal.
In addition, the first two near mine exploration drill holes at Groundrush on the Central Tanami Project have intersected broad zones of mineralisation well below the base of the existing open pit. These results add to the positive Hurricane‐Repulse drill results reported on 11 March 2011.
Tanami is bullish that Groundrush has potential to quickly and significantly add to the company’s Resource base from extensions to mineralisation both along strike and at depth.
Groundrush is by far the largest producing historical open pit on the Central Tanami Project (CTP) tenements (+600,000 ounces recovered) and produced more than 5,000 ounces of gold per vertical metre when it was mined over a three year period up to 2004.
In addition to the two surface diamond drill rigs operating at Groundrush, the company has mobilised another smaller diamond drill rig to test the Groundrush footwall lode which was exposed through previous open pit mining and delivered high grade ore to the mill.
Other than in the southern part of the open pit, where the lode was exposed and mined, the footwall lode has only had one hole drilled into it along strike to the north which returned an interval of 2 metres at 30g/t gold. The lode, which will be drill tested using the third rig, remains open along strike to the north and south and at depth.
Tanami is set to boost gold production at the Tanami project after a A$3.4 million upgrade to the Coyote treatment plant, as the company continues to hit further high grade gold intersections.
The company said the Coyote Stage I plant upgrade "is performing well with increased recoveries of approximately 98% being maintained and throughput achieving a rate equivalent to 350,000 tonnes per annum."
Tanami now has access to approximately 100 kilometres of strike of the prospective Mount Charles Formation which includes high priority drill targets located within trucking distance of the CTP treatment plant, following the grant of SELs 26925 and 26926 on 25 January 2011.
The priority targets include Gallifrey (historic drill interval of 22 metres at 8.5g/t gold), Marlena (historic drill interval of 16 metres at 16.1g/t gold) and Dolphin (historic drill interval of 4 metres at 32.8g/t gold).
Tanami now plans to commence drill testing the regional targets during the June 2011 quarter.
