Crescent Gold says it has fast-tracked plans to begin mining operations at its Apollo deposit, near Laverton, after it announced a maiden gold reserve of 54,000 ounces.
The Perth-based miner told the ASX today that the entire reserve was located within 75 metres of the surface at Apollo
Subject to approvals, Crescent said it was hopeful that first mining would commence in the September quarter this year.
It plans to commence reserve definition work on the Eclipse and Calypso deposits, both north of Apollo, during June, and anticipates processing the ore from Apollo at the nearby Granny Smith plant where the company has an ore purchase agreement with Barrick Gold.
"The new reserve milestone is contained in an upgraded JORC-compliant Measured, Indicated and Inferred ounce resource upgrade for Apollo that is 59% higher in ounces than previous," Crescent's statement said.
"The new resources, also announced today, stands at 2.47 million tonnes for a contained 179,000 ounces at an average grade of 2.2 g/t Au, using a 0.8 g/t cut off.
"The new resource estimate compares to the most recent previous resource estimate for Apollo from June last year under the project's previous ownership of an Inferred-only resource of 1.4 million tonnes at 2.4 g/t Au for 109,000 ounces using a 1.0 g/t cut off."
Crescent's shares have been largely steady at 5.3 cents since the announcement this morning.
