Antilles Gold Limited (“Antilles Gold” or the “Company”) (ASX: AAU, OTCQB: ANTMF) advises that the Company has received the attached Initial Mineral Resource Estimate (“MRE”) to a depth of approximately 150m from the surface for the Nueva Sabana gold-copper deposit, from consultants, Mining Associates Pty Ltd, and the 50:50 joint venture in Cuba can now complete the Scoping Study for the proposed mine.
The Nueva Sabana deposit is located within a 760 ha Exploration Concession in central Cuba which includes numerous oxide gold and copper targets, and the El Pilar copper-gold porphyry system.It is anticipated that an Exploitation Concession will be issued in the near future to replace the Exploration Concession which will allow construction and mining to commence at Nueva Sabana.The Exploitation Concession will not limit the depth of mining to 100m from surface, as does the current Exploration Concession, and will allow the Nueva Sabana project to be expanded to mine copper below this depth that has been identified by recent drilling into both the oxide zone, and the underlying El Pilar porphyry deposit.The deposit has three mineralised zones; a gold zone, a copper-gold zone, and a copper zone which appears to transition at depth to the offset El Pilar porphyry copper deposit.Early next week, Mining Associates are expected to provide the mining schedule and grades for an optimised pit to 100m depth as is permitted by the current Exploration Concession which will enable financial modelling of planned mining activities to proceed.Parameters for the Nueva Sabana Scoping Study will be advised when the mine schedule is published.It is expected the Scoping Study will be completed by the end of next month. With the Study results expected to demonstrate the project’s robust viability even for the short initial mine life that can currently be planned, and particularly in the first two years while primarily producing gold concentrates, the joint venture will be able to finalise negotiations for concentrate off-take and project financing.In order to shorten the mine construction period to around 10 months from its planned commencement in July 2024, site works and a short access road from the central highway will be carried out by a local contractor, and ProMiner will undertake preliminary engineering for the concentrator, between April and June 2024.The joint venture expects the unrestricted mining depth, and additional exploration will increase the gold inventory, and expand the copper resources both laterally and vertically.The extent of historic artisanal gold mining within the Nueva Sabana concession outside the initial pit outline indicates the occurrence of widespread shallow oxide gold similar to that in the delineated gold cap overlying what will effectively be a copper mine with gold credits.Antilles Gold also holds an Exploration Agreement in Cuba which includes a 17,000ha Reconaissance Permit surrounding the Nueva Sabana concession that can be explored in the future for copper, and gold.
Mr Brian Johnson, Chairman of Antilles Gold said that “the Company was confident that with the permitted increased mining depth, and further exploration, both the mine life, and the project value would increase considerably.”
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