Recent drilling at Troy Resources’ Karouni gold mine in Guyana, South America, has increased the gold resource to more than 1.1 million ounces.
In their latest annual statement of resources and ore reserves, Troy revealed a 48,000 ounce increase in ore reserves and an 83,400 ounce boost to inferred resources, adding around AUD$145m to the in-situ value of the resource.
The upgrades have increased the total resource by 5% to 1.13 million ounces, despite mining and processing of 46,000 ounces taking place in FY16.
The mine life at Karouni has now been extended to September 2020 in what is likely to be the first of many extensions as Troy accelerates drilling in the under-explored immediate vicinity of the mine.
The resource increase came from areas in the immediate vicinity of the existing open-pits, which gives investors plenty of reasons to think Troy has barely scratched the surface when it comes to Karouni’s potential.
The mine has quickly established itself as a low-cost producer, with all in sustaining costs of just US$816 an ounce in the second half of FY16. Gold production in FY17 is forecast at between 85,000 and 95,000 ounces in FY17.
The biggest contributor to the latest resource upgrade was a series of north-south gold veins cutting through the Smarts open pit that were uncovered after mining began.
An RC drilling program recently completed in Smarts stages 2 and 4 provided sufficient confidence to include the high-grade, narrow views, which range in thickness from a few cms to tens of cms, in the inferred resource.
Troy has also begun a scoping study to verify the economic potential of an underground mine to exploit the vertically dipping veins. A positive result from the study would justify a deeper, infill diamond drilling campaign to upgrade resources to reserves.
Five kilometers to the southeast at Hicks, a redesign of the open pits has added 45,000 ounces to the ore reserve total. This followed recent drilling that greatly improved he company’s understanding of the porphyry intrusives hosting the gold ore.
This improved geological knowledge also augurs well for more exploration success with the porphyry bodies, which are still open at depth and potentially extend along strike for several kms.
By Matt Birney
