Century Mining Updates on Lamaque Underground Progress and Sampling Results
Friday November 17, 1:34 pm ET
BLAINE, WASHINGTON--(CCNMatthews - Nov. 17, 2006) - Century Mining Corporation (TSX VENTURE:CMM - News) announced that progress continues with the Lamaque underground advanced exploration program. Significant gold grades have been encountered in the vein structures within the Lamaque mine.
The highest uncut and undiluted 3 foot sample returned to date graded 767 grams per ton.
Century has hired a core crew of miners, geologists, and engineers, for the Lamaque underground program and has procured sufficient equipment and materials to advance the program. An extensive sampling program of the available structures has been progressing with significant gold grades being assayed in many of the quartz vein structures.
Further to this, an initial 11,000 tonnes of ore grading over 15 g/t has been identified, sampled and blocked out for mining at the Lamaque underground. These ore blocks, which are expected to contain over 7,500 ounces of gold, were scheduled for milling in the last quarter of this year.
The Company secured the initial equipment and labor force requirements for start up of the Lamaque underground program, and has also satisfied the requirements of the Quebec CSST (Quebec Health and Safety Regulatory Authority).
However, the Company has been advised by the Quebec Ministry of Environment that it will need an updated Certificate of Authorization for the Lamaque underground project. The Company understood that the project was covered by the existing Sigma Lamaque certificate.
Century is now in the process of submitting the new application, approval for which is expected to take approximately 3 months.
In the meantime, Century will continue to drill, sample and define underground resources and ore blocks. As a result, Century will not be mining and milling the defined ore blocks in the fourth quarter, but will commence mining upon receipt of the above-mentioned permit.
Rehabilitation work associated with the main accesses and secondary means of egress have been completed and ground conditions encountered continue to be very favorable. The gold-bearing veins encountered to date underground are narrow vein flat laying structures, typically ranging in width from several inches to 2-3 feet, with significant assayed gold values returned from many samples and the presence of visible free gold occurring in a number of veins. Additionally, preliminary work indicates that the average grades to the mill will be similar to what was mined by Teck Corporation, or approximately 6 g/t.
Several future mining areas are currently being prepared, while sampling and exploratory work continue on several levels between 300 and 1200, which are accessible by the surface ramp.
The Lamaque mine shut down in 1985 at a time when gold prices were just over US$300 per ounce. Prior to this the mine had operated for 50 years, producing approximately 4.5 million ounces of gold. The milling rate at the small Lamaque mill was about 250 tonnes per day. Based on historical cash costs at Lamaque, adjusting for approximately 72% inflation from 1985 to 2006, and the fact that the milling costs through Century's 5,000 ton per day mill will be less than a quarter of the costs for a 250 tonne per day mill, Century has determined that the current price of gold is more than sufficient to support economical mining operations at the Lamaque mine. The Company will use the mining of the first several thousand tons of ore to provide estimates of direct underground mining costs. The milling, overhead and administrative costs are already well defined at the Sigma mill. The Sigma-Lamaque underground has NI 43-101 compliant resources as follows: Measured 772,000 tonnes at a grade of 5.4 g/t Au, Indicated 3,151,000 tonnes at a grade of 4.91 g/t Au for a total contained 630,000 ounces of gold in Measured and Indicated. In addition a further 10,101,000 tonnes is carried in the inferred category at a grade of 5.21 g/t Au containing 1.7 million ounces of gold. (Ref. CAM report, Sigma Lamaque Complex, November 29, 2005 which is available on www.sedar.com).
Century's results herein described have been prepared under the guidance of Mr. Ross F. Burns, P.Geo., LG, Vice President of Exploration, who is designated as a Qualified Person with the ability and authority to verify the authenticity and validity of the data.
Margaret Kent, President & CEO, commented: "We are very excited with the progress thus far at our Lamaque development program. We have retained Genivar Inc. in Val d'Or to assist the Company in expediting the amendment process for the environmental permit. Although this delay represents a change to our previous plans we are confident that shareholders will recognize the value associated with additional drilling and sampling work to further explore and delineate additional Lamaque resources. With 1.7 million ounces of gold in known underground resources at the Sigma and Lamaque properties, this development project has become a central part of the Company's overall operations."
A diagram for approximate locations of mining blocks can be seen by clicking on the following link: ccnmatthews.com
To view the November 2006 Sample Results, please click on the following link: ccnmatthews.com
biz.yahoo.com
Position:
I have approx. 125,000 shares in CMM.
I am NOT certain the above delay will result in CMM
missing either
(a) its full year revised annual forecast
(b) or just precludes them from exceedign their annual
forecast.
regards,
John |
