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Hollister finds more high-grade ore

By ADELLA HARDING - Mining Quarterly Editor

Published: Friday, October 30, 2009 1:10 PM CDT

ELKO — Great Basin Gold Ltd. this week released new high-grade drilling results for the Hollister property in Elko County, where the company is test mining and exploring underground.

Great Basin Gold reported exploration during the third quarter included bore holes that intersected gold with grades of 6.0 ounces per ton to 63 opt over widths ranging from a half foot to 6.4 feet.

These high-grade spots are part of the Gwenivere vein system and are part of the 40-vein intersections in excess of 1.0 opt made during the quarter, according to the company announcement.

The company also reported crews trial mined 18,232 tons during the quarter containing 18,026 ounces of gold at an average grade of 0.99 opt., and cash production costs were down 14 percent from $375 per ounce to $324 per ounce, not counting milling costs.

The company said it didn’t process ore in the quarter, however, so there was no posted revenue.

Great Basin Gold continues the exploration and test mining while making plans for full production at Hollister in the northwestern part of the county.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management expects to begin the environmental impact statement on Hollister within a couple of weeks, according to Janice Stadelman, the Hollister team leader for the BLM.

“We will be going into the scoping period,” she said.

“Our Hollister Project has now had the benefit of approximately one year of trial mining. We continue to make good progress toward ascertaining the most efficient mining method and the development of underground infrastructure,” Great Basin Gold President and Chief Executive Officer Ferdi Dippenaar said in the report on the quarter.

“Although the buildup in extracted ounces in 2009 has been slower than anticipated, the in-fill drilling shows the high-grade material available in the areas that will be accessed over the next 12 months,” he said

Meanwhile, Great Basin Gold is upgrading its Esmeralda mill to process Hollister test ore, and the company stated that it has reached an agreement with Yukon-Nevada Gold Corp. to process 30,000 tons from Hollister stockpiles at the Jerritt Canyon roasters north of Elko.

Yukon-Nevada, which just recently restarted the mill and its roasters, has agreed to process the ore for $88 per ton with fixed gold and silver recoveries of 88 percent, according to Great Basin Gold.

The Hollister stockpiles contain roughly 30,000 ounces of gold.

Newmont Mining Corp.’s Midas Mine had processed most of Hollister’s earlier production, but Great Basin Gold decided that because the Esmeralda mill is commissioned and the Midas costs were high, the company decided to wait for processing.

Great Basin Gold said the company has extracted 60,554 ounces of gold to date from Hollister at a grade averaging 1.13 opt.

https://miningquarterly.com/articles/2009/10/30/news/doc4aeb2bfa9d07a831219617.txt