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From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Thu Aug 18 2011 - 11:35:35 EDT
http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page103118?oid=133733&sn=Detail&pid=102055
Sunridge Gold sees sweetener in supergene at Eritrean deposit
Sunridge is looking at a high-grade - 16 percent copper - mining option at
its Debarwa deposit in Eritrea as it advances to feasibility.
Author: Kip Keen
Posted: Thursday , 18 Aug 2011
HALIFAX, NS -
Best things come in small packages, they say, and for Sunridge Gold (TSX-V:
SGV) at its Asmara project in Eritrea that seems to be the case with the
latest resource upgrade of the Debarwa volcanogenic massive sulphide
deposit.
It's been three or so years since the last resource estimate, and while on
the whole, little has changed size-wise for Sunridge at Debarwa, there now
appears to be an intriguing high-grade sweetener worth considering as a
small standalone mining project, Sunridge says.
First, though, there was a slight fizzle in terms of metal content in the
upgrade as the amount of contained copper, gold and silver contracted ever
so slightly, with only pounds zinc increasing. For comparison:
Debarwa Indicated 2008
204 million pounds copper
219,800 ounces gold
3 million ounces silver
57 million pounds zinc
Debarwa Measured and Indicated 2011
200 million pounds copper
180,000 ounces gold
2.9 million ounces silver
74 million pounds zinc
But, as they say, size, especially in mining where it equates with cost,
doesn't always matter. In upgrading Debarwa Sunridge honed in on a
particularly high-grade portion of what was already the higher-grade
supergene zone (read enriched by metals leached down from above).
Measured and indicated resources in the supergene are 1.4 million tonnes @
5.15 percent copper, 0.07 percent zinc, 1.4 g/t gold and 33 g/t silver.
Within that, however, there is what you might call a super-supergene zone,
for which Sunridge had its consultants model size and grade within a
plus-7.5 percent copper shell.
The result: 115,900 tonnes @ 16 percent copper translating into about 41
million pounds contained copper.
For Sunridge, this uber-copper zone, opens up an intriguing, if small,
mining option. As it puts together a feasibility study looking at Debarwa on
its own and as part of the three other deposits comprising the Asmara
project, Sunridge says it will consider a scenario that fast-tracks the
high-grade portion within the supergene zone to production and then ships a
crushed feed directly to smelter "without the need for a concentrator."
The point being, concentrators don't come cheap and mining a low-tonnage
high-grade deposit without one could speed the way to profits. Results from
the feasibility study, due out by year's end, will help flesh out that
hypothesis.
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