Niuminco Group Ltd (ASX:NIU) will commence a shallow drilling program at the ‘Enterprise’ vein system within the active Edie Creek mining operations in Papua New Guinea.
The production at Edie Creek during the June quarter was 317 ounces of gold and 287 ounces of silver for sales of $526,000.
The new drilling program is to establish an initial JORC resource at Enterprise and to define potential sources of high grade material to feed an upgraded wet gravity concentrating plant.
The Enterprise Mine was developed immediately prior to World War II, but no production occurred.
Calculations by Ben Whistler, who went on to become the head of the Australian Federal Bureau of Mineral Resources, established a potential for 35,000 ounces in 4 adjacent blocks in 2013.
Niuminco’s immediate target at Enterprise is the shallow exposure at the southeast end of the lode in a block where potential for 1000 ounces was calculated by Whistler.
The program comprises drilling a total of 350 to 500 metres in ten angled diamond core drill holes.
The drilling is expected to be completed in late September to early October.
Edie Creek remains an attractive project for Niuminco, with ore processing throughput rising over the quarter from 5.9 tonnes per day in May to 13 tonnes per day in June.
Significantly, Niuminco recovered an average grade of 12.9 g/t gold during the quarter.
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