Troy Resources has recovered 4,528 ounces of gold since mining re-commenced on January 10th this year at its Karouni gold project in Guyana South America, with much of the precious metal coming from the Hicks-4 pit that recently booked a three-fold reserve upgrade. Head grades have also been solid with the average grade for the quarter coming in at 2.2 grams per tonne gold.
Karouni shut down in late 2019 after a fatality occurred back on site and Troy has been slowly ramping up operations, which have been largely unaffected by the Coronavirus, since January this year.
Mining is currently proceeding at the Hicks-4 and Larken pits with trial mining also underway at the higher-grade Ohio Creek prospect ahead of a resource upgrade there.
The company said production results are in line with its plans for a conservative start-up with a total of 117,827 tonnes of ore grading 2.2 g/t gold mined since the start of mining operations. The last two months have seen a steady rate of over 50,000 tonnes of ore per month mined.
February’s grade was the most impressive for the three-month period at 2.74 grams per tonne gold with the grade. Total tonnes moved for the period were 2,299,445 with 117,827 of those being ore tonnes.
Troy recently recorded a three-fold increase in mineral reserves at the company’ Hicks-4 deposit that sits about 2km away from the Karouni gold plant. Recent reserve modelling at Hicks-4 resulted in a significant reserve jump to 480,000 tonnes at 2.0 g/t gold for 31,600 ounces.
Management said that overall resources at the project have increased to 5.87 Million Tonnes at 1.8 g/t gold.
Troy’s Karouni Gold project is located in Guyana on the North Atlantic seaboard of South America and the project covers 850 km2 of what Troy considers to be one of the last ‘underexplored’ greenstone terranes in the world. Karouni is surrounded by a number of ‘world-class’ gold deposits including Gold-X’s nearby Toroparu deposit that boasts greater than 10 million ounces.
The company’s 2020 work program appears to be well on track at Hicks-4 and importantly, the mineralisation there remains open at depth, with deeper diamond drilling results including 7 metres at 3.8 g/t gold from 130m and 15.6m@ 2.74g/t gold from 111m.
Whilst Hicks-4 will throw up a quick and easy 31,600 ounces, pretty much from surface, the real prize at Hicks-4 is the possibility of going underground and with some reasonable grades starting to emerge at depth, that may not be out of the question. The company is also examining development options for several nearby resources including the proposed Smarts underground deposit.
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By Matt Birney
