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 hits more high grade gold at Western and Central Tanami projects
Tanami Gold (ASX: TAM) has had further exploration success from drilling at both its Western and Central Tanami projects with results demonstrating the potential for significant Resource increases.
The company would be encouraged by today's results as they provide further evidence of the outstanding prospectivity of the projects.
Tanami is planning to increase gold production to 200,000 ounces per annum after a recent A$3.4 million upgrade to the Coyote treatment plant.
Initial drilling at the Groundrush deposit returned visible gold from three of the first four diamond drill holes.
Assay results from the first two holes include 2.6 metres at 13.8g/t gold from 346.5 metres and 8.5 metres at 5.3g/t gold from 235.5 metres.
In addition, results from ongoing deeper diamond drilling at the Central Tanami Project have extended mineralisation at the Carbine and Phoenix deposits.
Highlights include:
- 8.5 metres at 5.3g/t Au from 235.5 metres;
- 2.9 metres at 5.1g/t Au from 144.2 metres;
- 6.0 metres at 5.1g/t Au from 151.0 metres.
There were further high grade gold intersections returned from underground diamond drilling at the Coyote Mine in the Western Tanami Project including:
- 0.6 metres at 1,409g/t gold from 63.6 metres;
- 2.1 metres at 174g/t gold from 70.3 metres; and
- 0.3 metres at 179g/t gold from 36.7 metres.
Diamond drilling is continuing at the Central Tanami Project in the Northern Territory, with three rigs currently focused on completing a major Resource extension program at the Groundrush deposit.
Graeme Sloan, managing director of Tanami, said “we are continuing to see a flow of excellent exploration results which highlights the potential of both projects to significantly add to our Resource base which will underpin our company objective to increase gold production to 200,000 ounces per annum.”
The Groundrush open pit produced in excess of 600,000 ounces of gold from 2001 to 2004 at a recovered grade of 4.3g/t.
Only limited deep drilling has been conducted along the entire 1.6 kilometre strike length of the deposit.
Tanami is currently targeting extensions to the mineralisation both at depth and along strike with a view to ore production through open pit and/or underground mining.
Drilling will initially concentrate on an interpreted high grade zone immediately beneath the existing open pit.
The proximity of Phoenix to the proposed Carbine underground development will potentially enable both deposits to be exploited in tandem.
