Dominion extend exploration with more drilling at Challenger

Western Australian-headquartered gold company Dominion Mining Ltd is to pursue further exploration with drilling to extend its gold reserve at the company's Challenger mine in the far west of South Australia.

Dominion managing director Peter Alexander said the company had successfully pushed in recent times to lift and maintain its Challenger ore reserves at around 300,000 ounces of gold per annum.

Mr Alexander said the Challenger mine was on track to achieve its target for 2005-06 of 100,000 ounces of gold and was currently at about 83,000 ounces.

"The performance of the underground mining operations since they came into production last year has pushed Dominion into a top 10 position among Australian gold producers and we think we can do even better than that," Mr Alexander said.

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DOMINION BELIEVES DEEPER LODES HOLD ANSWER TO INCREASED RESERVES

Dominion Mining Limited says it will push ahead with further exploration drilling beneath its flagship underground M1 lode to extend the gold reserve at the Company's Challenger mine in the far west of South Australia.

Addressing the first day today of the "2006 Paydirt SA Resources @ Energy Investment Conference" being held in Adelaide, Dominion Managing Director, Mr Peter Alexander, said the Company had successfully pushed in recent times to lift and maintain its Challenger ore reserves at around 300,000 ounces of gold per annum.

"However, 90% of our current reserves are contained in the M1 shoot and our strategy is to extend both the M1 shoot and increase our drilling beneath the shoot where some initial work has intersected three metres at 23 grams per tonne gold about 150 metres below the lode," Mr Alexander said.

"We also plan to extend the adjoining M2 and M3 underground lodes where there are small reserves at present but which we believe can generate additional resources."

Mr Alexander told Conference delegates the Challenger mine was on track to achieve its target for 2005-06 of 100,000 ounces of gold and was currently at about 83,000 ounces.

"The performance of the underground mining operations since they came into production last year has pushed Dominion into a top 10 position among Australian gold producers and we think we can do even better than that.

"Our cash costs from underground mining are stabilising at sub A$280 an ounce and we are maintaining reserves against production at around our 300,000 ounce target.

"Under this production regime and our forward exploration strategy, Challenger has the potential yet to generate significant cash," Mr Alexander said.

The Challenger mine is located 750 kilometres northwest of Adelaide and since entering production in October 2002, will by June 30 this year reach the milestone of 250,000 ounces of gold production.