I'm guessing you may be intrigued with this one. Pretty gutsy deal, but need to come up with the money. The Estrella zone looks very low cost. Boy, PDG seems willing to cast off or ignore a lot of top quartile deposits. How will they be able to maintain reserves? National seems to feel there are plenty of targets left even though PDG spent 30 million on exploration?
National ups Mulatos resources
5/24/01
As part of a scoping study being prepared by Nevada Mining Consultants and Mintec, National Gold Corporation (NGT-V) has released a new resource calculation for the Mulatos deposit on the Salamandra gold project in Mexico.
The new calculation is based on a cutoff grade of 0.5 grams gold per tonne. It pegs the deposit's resource, in all categories, at 133.3 million tonnes grading 1.1 grams gold for 4.75 million contained ounces. A previous calculation had the deposit at 68.3 million tonnes grading 1.6 grams for 3.4 million contained ounces, based on a 0.8-gram cutoff.
National says the size of the Mulatos stratabound epithermal system demonstrates how readily this widespread gold mineralization would allow for expansion of the economic resources, pit designs and production rates at sustained increased gold prices. Mulatos is one of seven gold-bearing epithermal systems in the Salamadra gold camp, which extends over 150 sq. km.
Previous feasibility work by Placer Dome (PDG-T) and Kennecott Minerals designed an open-pit mine for Mulatos containing 43.5 million tonnes grading 1.58 grams gold per tonne. The 1999 feasibility study envisioned a 17,500-tonne-per-day open-pit operation. Capital costs were pegged at US$120 million. Operating costs for the heap-leach operation were estimated at $5 per processed tonne at a gold recovery rate of 66%.
National is looking at putting Mulatos' high-grade core, dubbed Estrella, into metallurgical test production to verify previous metallurgical results. Estrella hosts a measured and indicated resource of 11.5 million tonnes grading 3.16 grams per tonne, using a 2-gram-per-tonne cutoff.
The company says the cash flow from the test production should be sufficient to meet the subsequent property payments and allow a scale-up to full production of the 11 million tonnes of high-grade ore.
The scoping study should wrap up by June.
National took over the advanced project late last year from Placer and Kennecott Minerals. National has made the initial $250,000 payment required for the purchase of the property. To close the deal, it must now raise $3.6 million by Aug. 30.
The $10.5-million deal was originally slated to close at the end of February, but regulatory hurdles pushed the date ahead to mid-March. A second extension was then granted by Placer and Kennecott, who deferred $2.75 million of the closing payments to July and agreed to pay the $1.6-million refundable IVA tax.
On the back of the acquisition, National had hoped to raise $5.2 million, but poor market conditions prompted the junior to close a $750,000 interim financing.
The Canadian Ventures Exchange has requested that National complete a $1.6-million financing before July 15 and a second financing for an additional $2 million by Aug. 30. If these financial obligations are not met, the company may run afoul of the exchange's maintenance requirements and be downgraded to the status of inactive trading. National says it is confident it can raise the funds.
The junior is talking to a several major gold producers about a possible financing and joint-venture arrangement. |
