Rimfire Pacific Mining NL's (ASX:RIM) reinterpretation of the gold and silver resource at the Sorpresa project in Central West NSW has proven “encouraging” enough to continue with the appraisal process.
The company’s aim is to assess if potential exists for a higher grade, lower tonnage project that can generate near-term positive cash flow.
This reinterpretation work includes results from 11,196 metres of additional drilling in 232 drill holes at Sorpresa between 2015 and 2017.
In pursuit of the aim it was essential to incorporate this additional drilling data as part of the re-evaluation of Sorpresa mineralisation.
READ: Rimfire Pacific drilling will test for large-scale mineralisation at NSW projects
Rimfire managing director Craig Riley said: “Results from the evaluation of the re-interpretation work on the Sorpresa geological model from 2014 at each intermediate milestone have been sufficiently encouraging to warrant continuing the process.
“The company continues to also work on pathways to monetise Sorpresa, including deals with third parties.
“Work is also continuing on assessing highly prospective local targets such as Northern Gold that would significantly impact monetisation outcomes for Sorpresa.”
To better facilitate monetisation of the project, Rimfire Pacific will complete a JORC (2012) compliant resource report that will allow results of resource modelling to be reported in compliance with ASX reporting of ore reserves and mineral resources requirements.
READ: Rimfire Pacific welcomes Emmerson Resources adjacent porphyry copper-style discovery
A reinterpretation of Sorpresa was undertaken utilising all relevant available drill data and new geological perspectives generated from ongoing work in the Fifield area.
The interpretation has been submitted to H&S Consultants Pty Ltd who completed the original Sorpresa resource estimate in 2014.
As the updated H&SC estimate is not JORC (2012) compliant, Rimfire is unable to disclose the outcome of this reinterpretation to shareholders.
The preliminary updated resource model by H&S was used by Australian Mine Design & Development (AMDAD) for initial pit optimisation analysis.
Results of this work will be reported once H&S complete the updated JORC 2012 resource report.