Norseman Gold (LON:NGL, ASX:NGX) reported that OK Decline and North Royal open pit at the Norseman gold project in Australia have both been advanced over the last few months.
Both should supply an increasing amount of ore feed to the treatment plant should progress continue at the same pace, said Norseman.
The company will conduct a review of the mine forecast to determine the accuracy of the current forecasts once the mining and treatment of the ore from the North Royal open pit has commenced.
The treatment plant is expected to be filled to capacity by the June quarter 2011, when ore production will reach a high enough rate.
Once the dewatering is complete and when access is available to the pit floor, the company will be able to drill a number of holes on the resource to finalise the knowledge of the orebody and gain final resource estimations.
Norseman said that this could allow a further 230,000 tonnes of the inferred resource to be converted to indicated resource, and hence probable reserve.
However, there are some areas within the pit shell that cannot be converted due to the difficulties of accessing appropriate drill positions around the historical pit location.
Norseman has undertaken a reclassification of the North Royal open pit resource within the stage 1 pit shell, while resource estimation work was updated with results from drilling conducted in August and September.
Drilling and resource estimation continues on areas outside the initial Stage 1 pit shell.
Mobilisation of the equipment fleet and work force to site is expected in December 2010 with first excavation set to commence in the same month and first ore set to be hauled to the treatment plant in February 2010.
Stoping has commenced at OK Decline with the first blast taking place at the end of October 2010.
The stoping production is expected to increase steadily after December 2010 once further infrastructure installations are complete at the mine.
Drilling has continued into the Star of Erin reef with intersections showing mineralisation in the target zones with assay results pending.
Total resourcee at Norseman stands at 21 million tonnes (Mt) grading 5.3 grammes per tonne (g/t) gold for 3.8 million ounces (Moz) contained.
Meanwhile, surface drilling at Tiara, a potential extension to the current pit located immediately to the east, and the follow-up to the sterilisation drilling have been completed with assay results still to be received.