www.archipelagoresources.co.uk
Archipelago Resources Plc (Archipelago) is a UK incorporated company formed in 2002 to acquire, explore, develop and mine gold and other metal deposits in south east Asia. Archipelago was listed on AIM in September 2003 and as a result of a number of capital raisings has 569,197,635 shares in issue. Archipelago’s registered office is in London but the Company is managed from Singapore and all project development personnel are located at the Company’s principal project at Toka Tindung in North Sulawesi, Indonesia.
Archipelago’s gold resource upgrade will extend TokaTindung mine life significantly, says CEO Engelbrecht
Archipelago Resources’ (LON:AR.) major resource upgrade will allow the mining firm to extend the TokaTindung mine’s life significantly, says chief executive Marcus Engelbrecht.
This week the miner revealed hefty resource upgrades for two of the five deposits at TokaTindung, northern Indonesia.
The total measured & indicated resource categories for the TokaTindung pit increased by 79% to 1.31 million contained ounces of gold, while Kopra, a second deposit on the site, rose by 186% to 260,000 contained oz gold.
“The expectation has always been positive. We knew that the orebody was very prospective,” Engelbrecht told Proactive Investors.
“Previously as an exploration company we drilled the ore body out to about 1 million ounces of reserves and about 1.5 million ounces of resources and then we stopped drilling and set out to get funding to build the mine.
“We spent about six months and about US$9 million on a focused exploration programme this year and it has been extremely positive.
He added: “We knew the orebody was a good one, but the results were even more positive than we expected. It is a really good outcome for us.”
At the TokaTindung deposit, the JORC compliant resource has now doubled to 38.2 million tonnes at 1.2 grams per tonne for 1.47 million contained ounces of gold with 2.98 million contained ounces of silver at 2.4g/t. At Kopra, the resource estimate rises by 313% to 3.63m/t at 3.3 g/t for 388,000 contained ounces of gold.
The resource upgrade was for the Toka and Kopra pits but the ongoing drilling spans the whole mine.The mine comprises five pits and the results of the exploration will have positive implications for all of them, Engelbrecht explained.
Modelling is currently underway for the other deposits, Pajajaran, Araren and Blambangan, and Archipelago hopes to be in a position to release more positive results in the near future.
The findings will significantly extend TokaTindung’s mine life, Engelbrecht added. “There is more work to do but with these kinds of increases in resource we are expecting there will a significant increase in the life of mine.”
“We were originally thinking the mine would have a nine year life, including low grade stockpiles, but we now believe it will go out significantly past that. That is to be expected with this kind of outcome.”
“We will continue our exploration work in the new year and we’d in turn expect that to increase the mine’s life even further.”
Engelbrecht says Archipelago will come out with a full JORC reserve and resource statement in January or February of next year, and with exploration work ongoing it is expected that the mine’s reserve and resource statements will be revised on an annual basis thereafter.
Meanwhile he says that the firm has overcome any issues experienced during the ramp-up of the mine’s processing plant.
The start-up is understood to have gone extremely well and is now approaching steady-state. Furthermore Archipelago is now looking at a number of potential add-ons that could increase the mine’s output capacity from there.
“It is a relatively straightforward operation, it is going well and there are no issues that are of any real concern for us.”
