Troy Resources continues to strengthen the foundations of its Karouni gold project in Guyana by bringing another deposit online during the first half of 2019, while adding a new inferred mineral resource at Ohio Creek into its inventory.
The WA-based company has also outperformed its September gold production target by 1,395 ounces, churning out 4,395 ounces for the month to finish the quarter with 10,042 ounces.
In its just-released mineral resource and ore reserve statement, Troy said that as of June 30 2019, the project had JORC-compliant proven and probable ore reserves of 1.203 million tonnes of ore grading 1.9g/t gold for 75,100 gold ounces.
It also has total measured, indicated and inferred resources of around 15.8 million tonnes at 1.9g/t gold for a solid 986,300 gold ounces.
Although it was business as usual at the company’s existing Smarts and Hicks pits, mining of the Larken deposit commenced during the first half of 2019, where Troy slot-mined over the length of a high-grade shear zone, confirming the continuity of the mineralised structure.
As it stands, Larken has an ore reserve of 40,000 tonnes at 2.7g/t gold for 3,500 gold ounces, which forms part of the total mineral resource of 9,100 gold ounces for that area.
Furthermore, Larken’s pit design showed that the remaining ore blocks predominantly grade 1-3g/t gold, with a high-proportion of 3g/t-10g/t gold in some sections, using a cut-off grade of 0.86g/t gold.
Meanwhile Troy has, for the first time, included the emerging Ohio Creek deposit as an inferred mineral resource in Karouni’s inventory.
Since drilling started in September 2018, 25 diamond and 199 RC holes totalling 18,180 metres have identified a mineralised corridor at Ohio Creek of about 950m in length which is open in all directions.
As a result, the company added a further 2.226 million tonnes grading 1.9g/t gold for 134,300 gold ounces to its books, from that deposit.
Troy said this categorisation reflected the fact that the controls on the higher-grade gold mineralisation at Ohio Creek were not well understood at this point.
Plans are in place to start mining a small test pit at Ohio Creek in the central part of the resource just to the north of the Tallman pit where artisanal miners had previously tackled high-grade structures using very small-scale mining methods.
In addition to determining the most optimal mining techniques in order to minimise dilution and ore loss on these high-grade veins, it is anticipated that the trial mining will increase the understanding of controls on the gold mineralisation and boost confidence levels in interpreting resources and reserves moving forward.
At Smarts, the probable ore reserve is 447,000t at 3g/t gold for 42,700 ounces, which forms part of a larger mineral resource of 190,800 ounces there.
This estimate incorporates a cut-back to Smarts 3, where the cut-off grade is 0.86g/t gold, to enable the pit to be deepened in order to exploit additional mineralisation.
Total mineral resources outside the Smarts 3 pit – now referred to as Smarts Deep – are 3 million tonnes at 3.0g/t gold for 287,600 ounces.
Over at the Hicks deposit, the creek between Hicks 2 and the previously completed Hicks 3 pit has been diverted, enabling Hicks 2 to be mined to its design and in so doing, exposing high-grade ore that was previously inaccessible.
While the Hicks 1 and Hicks 2 pits are nearing completion, recent RC drilling to the north of Hicks 1 enhanced the mineral resource in this area, resulting in an extension to the Hicks 1 pit.
Overall, Hicks has an ore reserve of 165,000 tonnes at 2.1g/t gold for 11,100 gold ounces, most of which sit in the extended Hicks 1.
This ore reserve forms part of a total mineral resource of 122,200 contained ounces which includes contributions from the Hicks 1, 2 and 3 pits.
At Spearpoint, last year’s ore reserve of 167,000 tonnes at 1.8 g/t gold for 9,600 ounces forms part of a total mineral resource there of 43,200 ounces, which has not changed.
At Goldstar, wide-spaced drilling conducted in 2016 and 2017 saw an inferred mineral resource of 620,000 tonnes defined at 1.3g/t gold for 25,500 ounces.
The addition of Ohio Creek into the resource statement is a positive move for Troy given its propensity for reasonably high-grade ore and its blue-sky nature.
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By Matt Birney
