www.cgamining.com
CGA Mining (ASX:CGX, TSX:CGA) and its subsidiaries, is a producing gold mining company, with its principal asset being the +200,000 ounce per annum Masbate Gold Mine in the Philippines. The Masbate Gold Project has total resources of approximately 7.7m ounces and and reserves of 3m ounces.
The Masbate Gold Project is the largest operating gold project in the Philippines. Construction on the process plant was successfully completed in February 2009, less than 2 years after acquisition of the project, with the construction and installation of the power plant completed in April 2009. First gold was poured on 12 May 2009, with over 1 tonne of gold poured by September 09 and total production in excess of 150,000 ounces in the first year of operation. The project is forecast to produce over 200,000 ounces per annum and an expansion to 6.5mtpa is planned in 2010/2011 to further increase the production profile of the project.
The Company is focussed on enhancing the value of the Masbate Gold Project by both production growth and an aggressive exploration program on the highly prospective tenements and identifying new growth opportunities, through judicious and profitable acquisition programmes.
CGA Mining closes in on full gold production capacity at Masbate in the Philippines
CGA Mining (ASX:CGX, TSX:CGA) is continuing to find exploration success at the Masbate Gold Project in the Philippines, with gold production continuing to increase.
The latest exploration highlight at Blue Quartz includes 36 metres at 7.74 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 126 metres.
At the north west extension of the HMB zone, CGA Mining intercepted 11 metres at 3.25g/t gold from surface, 41 metres at 4.76g/t gold from 116 metres, and 10 metres at 4.32g/t gold from 44 metres.
CGA Mining said that production continues to increase and the repair of the SAG Mill in on track, with the repairs confirmed that they can be done in situ, which will mitigate both the cost and timeline for the repairs.
This will also incorporate all required quality assurance procedures.
Most importantly - production is set to reach full capacity by the end of October.
SAG Mill repairs
Metso Minerals has been awarded the contract to conduct the repairs to the mill which is expected to take around 10 weeks.
CGA Mining said that the Metso technical experts, based in the USA, have successfully repaired similar failures on this type of mill on a number of previous occasions.
All repairs will also be subject to independent engineering supervision and full ultrasonic testing of all repair work will be conducted prior to the mill being placed back into operation.
CGA Mining added that in the interim, production via the bypass conveyor to the rest of the process plant is operating successfully with throughput already up to 340tph.
With the supplementary crusher, due for commissioning at the start of September, throughput is expected to increase further to plus 500tph.
The Masbate Gold Project
Masbate has now successfully been pouring gold for two years.
The project has a total Indicated resource base of 4.55 million gold ounces, a total Inferred resource base of 3.22 million gold ounces and a Probable Reserve of 3.03 million gold ounces.
CGA Mining has an aggressive exploration strategy at the project, and plans to undertake 172,000 metres of drilling at a cost of US$20 million over the next twelve months.
