Found this on The Prospector Web Site
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Sun River Strikes Good Deal in Honduras
Sun River Mining (SUNR:NASDAQ BB) entered into an agreement to purchase Compania
Minera Cerros del Sur and its principal holdings, including a mineral concession, a producing mine
and a processing plant in Honduras for $350,000.
The company says that while the property has recorded production since the days of Spanish
operations, the oxide mineralisation that sustained the present small-scale operation for the past
twenty years is developed along only 350 ft of the 1500 ft known strike length of the mineralised
shear zone. No exploration or development work was done along strike to the east of the present
workings, though the company says the concession extends over 3,300 ft east.
Sun River estimates that in the developed section of the oxide zone, there remains about 10,000
ounces of gold recoverable with the existing vat leaching process and adds that additional oxide
mineralisation is anticipated to the east and in a recently discovered zone north of the mine, where
an additional 30,000 to 50,000 ounces of gold could be defined.
Surface and underground samples collected by Sun River in May ranged from less than 0.06 grams
per tonne (g/t) gold to 8.43 g/t gold, though the company says the single low-grade sample is from
visibly fresh and unaltered andesite collected from a road cut north of the mine. Samples from the
run-of-mine material range from 0.87 g/t gold to 4.09 g/t gold, values which Sun River says are
representative of the material currently being leached.
One surface sample, taken from a recently exposed rock mass in a gully about 1200 ft north of the
mine, returned 8.43 g/t gold. The company says the new mineral exposure is the product of last
year's heavy rains and erosion and was recently recognized as possibly representing a previously
unknown mineralised zone.
Sun River estimates that current costs for increased production of up to 300 tons/day from the
oxidized zone could be achieved at a direct cash cost of about $125/ounce of gold produced. (June
9/99) |
