LONDON, ENGLAND — (Marketwired) — 11/08/13 — (–Condor“ or „the Company“) (AIM: CNR), is pleased to announce an updated mineral resource estimate on the La India Project, Nicaragua compiled by SRK Consulting (U.K.) Ltd. The CIM compliant mineral resource now contains indicated mineral resources of 9.6Mt at 3.5g/t Au for 1.08 million ounces of gold and inferred mineral resources of 8.8Mt at 4.4g/t for 1.25 million ounces of gold reported to NI 43-101 standard. In addition, there is 2.68 million ounces of silver at a grade of 6.2g/t estimated on the La India and California Veins, and the historic America Mine, only where there is sufficient silver assay data.
Highlights of La India Project Resource:
Note: As Condor owns 100% of La India Project, the resource figures throughout this announcement are stated both gross and net to Condor. Gold equivalent calculated using a 67:1 silver to gold price ratio.
Mark Child, Chairman and CEO commented:
„Overall, I am pleased with this resource Update. It shows that the mineral resource in the higher indicated category of confidence has increased by 43% to 9.6Mt at 3.5 g/t for 1.08M oz gold. The total open pit resource has increased 20% to 1.14M oz gold at 3.1g/t with the identification of two open pits on the America of 160,000 oz gold at 4.2g/t gold and Central Breccia of 57,000 oz gold at 1.9g/t gold. The potential feeder pits complement the main high grade La India open pit resource of 921,000 oz gold at 3.0g/t gold. Furthermore, La India Project Mineral Resource remains broadly unchanged at 18.4Mt at 3.9g/t for 2.33M oz gold and a small silver resource of 2.68M oz silver at 6.2g/t silver.
The main La India Open Pit resource is now much more robust following an additional 14,000m of infill drilling. The original resource was compiled from a combination of underground grade control samples and drill assay results from previous Soviet and Canadian sponsored drill programmes. Condor-s drilling has resulted in a slight repositioning of the depletion zones of the historic mine and a more accurate mineral resource estimation confined by a whittle pit shell, using updated geotechnical pit angles, mining dilution factors, recovery rate and other estimated operational costs. La India Open Pit resource may increase in size once the hydrogeology is completed and the pit angle may also improve 1 to 3 degrees, thus driving the pit deeper.“
The updated Mineral Resource Estimate incorporates a 23,598m drilling programme completed since the last resource estimate in September 2012. The additional drilling, and the updated part of the mineral resource, are in three areas at the core of the La India Project, all of which now contain open pit mineral resources determined using an optimized Whittle pit model (See Figure 1 below):
The Updated Mineral Resource represents a significant advance towards a pre-feasibility study („PFS“) with an increase in the open pit mineral resource and the conversion of a large part of the mineral resource to indicated level of confidence as required for inclusion in a PFS (Tables 1-3 below).
1.14M oz Open Pit Resource
The latest drilling at La India Project has targeted areas with open pit potential within the 6km by 3km core of the project area and has successfully increased the in-pit gold resource from 954,000 oz, located only in one location, to 1.14 million oz at 3.1g/t gold in three close-spaced pits: the 921,000 oz La India Open Pit, the 160,000 oz America Open Pit and the 57,000 oz Central Breccia Open Pit resources. The addition of the two smaller pits will add flexibility to a future open pit mining operations.
1.08M oz Indicated Resource
As well as adding additional open pit mineral resource gold ounces, the drilling has upgraded confidence in the mineral resource with over 1 million ounces gold indicated mineral resource defined in the La India and America Vein Sets, of which 899,000 oz is contained within the open-pit shells, with the balance of 177,000 oz split evenly between the deeper levels beneath the La India and America Mine Mineral resource Whittle open pit shells.
La India Mineral Resource
The La India Open Pit Mineral Resource estimate of 921,000 oz gold remains largely unchanged from the previous, predominantly inferred mineral resource estimate, but now contains 838,000 oz gold at a grade of 3.1g/t in the indicated level of confidence within the Whittle open pit shell. Drilling on La India was primarily designed to convert inferred mineral resource that fell within the optimised Whittle open pit shell to the more confident indicated mineral resource category required for inclusion in a PFS. The 50m spaced infill drilling has resulted in a more robust mineral resource model with most of the in-pit resource assigned indicated level of confidence due to the greater confidence in continuity of mineralisation between drill holes. However, some more geologically complex areas have been identified which will require further closer spaced infill drilling to allow a geological interpretation at indicated level of confidence. An additional 381,000 oz gold, including 98,000 oz of indicated mineral resource, lies outside of the Whittle pit shell and has been estimated using underground mining parameters.
America Mineral Resource
An optimised Whittle Open Pit mineral resource of 1.18Mt at 4.2g/t for 160,000 oz gold has been estimated on the America Vein Set. The Open Pit Mineral resource includes 226,000t at 8.4g/t for 61,000 oz gold in the indicated category and a further 957,000t at 3.2g/t for 99,000 oz in the inferred category. An additional Indicated Resource of 358,00t at 6.83g/t for 78,000 oz gold falls outside of the optimised Whittle pit shell and has been estimated using a higher cut-off grade of 2.0g/t to reflect the higher costs of anticipated underground mining. This new open pit mineral resource combined with the updated mineral resource on the America-Escondido and Constancia veins (together referred to as the America Mine Mineral resource), and the existing mineral resource on the Guapinol Vein results in an updated mineral resource estimate of 585,000t at 7.4 g/t for 140,000 oz gold within the indicated category plus 2.55Mt at 4.2g/t for 344,000 oz gold in the inferred category for the America Vein Set.
This maiden open pit component of the mineral resource is built around the historic underground mine workings and includes remnant wallrock mineralisation in the historic America Mine discovered in the recent drilling campaign. The optimised Whittle pit shell reaches a maximum depth of 140 m below surface to exploit a 200m down-dip extent in a structurally complex zone where three vein directions intersect; the Constancia Veins intercept a 60 degrees flexure in the America-Escondido Vein. The development of wider veins and quartz breccia zones at this structurally complex zone has resulted in some wider zones of gold mineralisation modelled as amenable to open pit mining. The remaining Whittle open pit mineral resource covers shallow mineralisation typically to a depth of 50m along 2000m strike length of the America and to a lesser extent the Constancia veins.
Central Breccia Mineral Resource
A maiden open pit inferred mineral resource estimate of 939,000t at 1.9g/t for 57,000 oz gold has been completed on the Central Breccia based on 2,669m of drilling and 1,400m of trenching completed by Condor since the Company geologists discovered the Central Breccia in 2011. The style of gold mineralisation is unusual for the La India Project: the gold mineralisation is hosted by a hydrothermal calcite breccia with high-grade gold mineralised zones associated with internal zones of intense argillic alteration and sulphide mineralisation within a low-grade background halo. The breccia forms a broadly funnel shaped body with maximum lateral extent of 270m at surface, interpreted to narrow at depth. Drilling has intercepted gold mineralisation at a maximum depth of 150m below surface, however the depth extent remains untested. The entire resource, which forms a distinctive steep sided hill, falls within a low strip ratio Whittle Pit shell. However lateral continuity of the high-grade zones is on a 10-s of metres scale, which means that the mineral resource has been assigned inferred status and would require further drilling to convert to the indicated level of confidence.
The latest mineral resource estimate has added confidence to the La India Mine Project which now contains a significant and robust open pit resource providing the advantage of the improved mining economics associated with the flexibility in having multiple open pits within a 6km by 3km area. The small overall reduction in the La India Project mineral resource in the areas that have been converted from inferred to indicated mineral resource is considered well within the margins of the accuracy of the inferred resource category.
The open pit mineral resources are based on a cut-off grade of 0.5g/t gold for the material with potential to be mined by open-pit mining methods, based on benchmarked parameters. Using the adjusted parameters in conjunction with the underground mining costs used in conceptual study. SRK has also updated the underground cut-off calculation to 2.0g/t gold over a minimum width of 1.0m. Mineral resources have been classified such that indicated resources have been confined to areas of infill drilling of better than 50m by 50m, and where geological confidence in both interpretation and estimates are deemed to be high. Inferred resources apply to blocks lying outside of indicated wireframes which still display reasonable strike continuity and dip extension. Resources not drilled
To view Figure 1. Location of the Mineral Resources within La India Project, visit the following link:
SRK disclaimer
The Mineral Resource estimate has been completed by Ben Parsons, a Principal Consultant (Resource Geology) with SRK Consulting (UK) Ltd, who is a Member of the Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, MAusIMM(CP). Ben Parsons has some thirteen years- experience in the exploration, definition and mining of precious and base metal Mineral Resources. Ben Parsons is a full-time employee of SRK Consulting (UK) Ltd, an independent Consultancy and has sufficient experience which is relevant to the style of mineralization and type of deposit under consideration, and to the type of activity which he is undertaking to qualify as a Competent Person as defined in the June 2009 Edition of the AIM Note for Mining and Oil & Gas Companies. Ben Parsons consents to the inclusion in the announcement of the matters based on their information in the form and context in which it appears and confirms that this information is accurate and not false or misleading.
SRK has reviewed the information in this announcement in relation to the figures in Table 1, Table 2 and Table 3, and confirms that the figures accurately reflect the Mineral Resource Statements as presented by SRK to the Company.
Competent Person-s Declaration
The information in this announcement that relates to the mineral potential, geology, Exploration Results and database is based on information compiled by and reviewed by Dr Luc English, the Country Exploration Manager, who is a Chartered Geologist and Fellow of the Geological Society of London, and a geologist with eighteen years of experience in the exploration and definition of precious and base metal mineral resources. Luc English is a full-time employee of Condor Gold plc and has sufficient experience which is relevant to the style of mineralization and type of deposit under consideration, and to the type of activity which he is undertaking to qualify as a Competent Person as defined in the June 2009 Edition of the AIM Note for Mining and Oil & Gas Companies. Luc English consents to the inclusion in the announcement of the matters based on their information in the form and context in which it appears and confirms that this information is accurate and not false or misleading.
About Condor Gold plc:
Condor Gold plc is an AIM listed exploration company focused on developing gold and silver resource projects in Central America. The Company was admitted to AIM on 31st May 2006 with the stated strategy to prove up CIM/JORC Resources in Nicaragua and El Salvador. Condor has seven 100% owned concessions in La India Mining District („La India Project“); three 100% owned concessions in three other project areas and 20% in the Cerro Quiroz concession in Nicaragua. In El Salvador, Condor has 90% ownership of four licences in two project areas.
Condor-s concession holdings in Nicaragua currently contain an attributable CIM/JORC compliant resource base of 2,497,000 ounces of gold equivalent at 4.6 g/t in Nicaragua and an attributable 1,004,000 oz gold equivalent at 2.6g/t JORC compliant resource base in El Salvador. The resource calculations are compiled by independent geologists SRK Consulting (UK) Limited for Nicaragua, and Ravensgate and Geosure for El Salvador.
Disclaimer
Neither the contents of the Company-s website nor the contents of any website accessible from hyperlinks on the Company-s website (or any other website) is incorporated into, or forms part of, this announcement.
Technical Glossary
Contacts: Condor Gold plc Mark Child Executive Chairman and CEO +44 (0) 20 7408 1067
Condor Gold plc Luc English Country Manager Nicaragua +505 8854 0753
Beaumont Cornish Limited Roland Cornish +44 (0) 20 7628 3396
Numis Securities Limited John Prior and James Black +44 (0) 20 72601000
Farm Street Media Simon Robinson +44 (0) 7593 340107
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