Zone 5 ……29 grams per ton Grade control drilling in Zones 2 and 5 are being conducted on five to 10 m centres and is designed to provide a much higher resolution of the lode arrays than compared with infill drilling, which is being conducted on approximately 20 m centres.
This increased resolution provides a much better understanding of the geometry and mineralization of the lodes and helps to optimize mine development and extraction.
grade control assay grades being of very high drill sampling density should be an accurate representation of the shallow zones being/ to be mined in These two zones.
I have posted Zone two grades which average 20 grams per ton.
The much larger Zone 5 assay grades representing over 70 assay samples from the April and June 2023 Drill reports have been estimated to have an average grade of 29 grams per ton.
For these early mining zones, currently under commissioning ramp up to 500 tpd ,
these are extraordinary grades that are rarely encountered in any gold mines around the world .
Being drill sampled just 5-10 m apart , they should have minimal mining dilution which means that you can just drive a mining ramp straight through these zones and recover these grades.
Early commissioning has been largely the lower grades of stockpiled ore of Zone 2, but mechanical mining of these LOM grades began circa mid April in Zone 2 and about late April in Zone 5.
Taking May and June as mechanical mining of both zones @ average 30 tpd to be conservative , about 18000 tons would be mined from Zones 2 and 5.
At conservative 15 grams per ton, 270,000 grams would be mined in May and June , of which about 240,000 grams or 8000 ounces would recovered.
Noting that high grading is normal in early mining of a new gold mine, this estimate could be conservative,
Still, 8000 ounces at $3000 ounces cad POG represents $24 million in Revenue.
Being very shallow, very high grade and very well spatially defined by close spaced grade control, cash costs would be very low and probably below $500 US per ounce ($700 CAD ) , so cash flows will be above $20 million for those two months .
This assumes that mechanical mining achieves its mining output forecast of 300 tpd.
So far, so good ......