Patience is a virtue often ascribed to the Chinese, and it’s something Perth-based Tianshan Goldfields Ltd has successfully applied to its extensive exploration program in the north-west of China.
Patience is a virtue often ascribed to the Chinese, and it’s something Perth-based Tianshan Goldfields Ltd has successfully applied to its extensive exploration program in the north-west of China.
Tianshan has been drilling its Gold Mountain project in the prospective Tianshan gold belt near the Kazakhstan border since 2003 and has just announced a maiden gold resource of more than two million ounces.
Tianshan chairman Keith Liddell told WA Business News the company will launch another 14 rig, 40,000 metre diamond and reverse circulation drilling program early next month.
Tianshan is primarily looking for low-cost, large tonnage, open-pittable, heap-leachable, near-surface gold deposits.
It seems well on the way to ensuring the first part of the project equation, posting very low costs of about $US3.50 ($A4.80) per ounce of gold discovered. And Mr Liddell expects those costs to fall further in the upcoming round of drilling.
“Our exploration program to date has been very efficient and cost effective,” he said.
“We are looking for both large tonnage open pit heap leach deposits and higher grade feeders systems, and we are very encouraged by what we have found to date.”
At the higher end of the resource scale, Tianshan has outlined 60 million tonnes containing 1.66 million ounces, rising to 93 million tonnes containing 2.1 million ounces at a lower gold grade.
The Gold Mountain project consists of eight exploration licences over 512 square kilometres. The new resource is from just four square kilometres.
Because of that, Mr Liddell said a decision to mine was still some way off, given the number of undrilled mineralised targets in the immediate area and wider regional targets that had been identified. He expected the mining decision process could begin before the end of the year.
Over the past year, drilling has focused on the northern Yelmand, Jinxi and Mayituobi deposits. There are nine other immediate targets.
Tianshan recently completed a $A2.75 million placement to European institutional investors ahead of its listing on the London Alternative Investment Market at the end of May/early June.
Mr Liddell confirmed another capital raising would be made then “of about the same size or a little higher”.
This is a route well known to Mr Liddell. He is also chairman of Mineral Securities Ltd, which has an 11 per cent stake in Tianshan, 8.6 million June 2008 options and a near 20 per cent stake in aspiring platinum group minerals producer Platmin Ltd, also being prepared for AIM listing in the next two to three months.
Platmin is eyeing a small AIM raising to complete the $20 million feasibility study on its major Pilanesberg project in South Africa, with the option of a later dual listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange and larger fund raising.
Mr Liddell was also managing director of the successful Perth-based southern African platinum producer, Aquarius Platinum Ltd.
