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Sunridge Gold Corp. – Metallurgy results indicate high potential gold recovery rates

Last updated: 15:00 17 Feb 2009 AEDT, First published: 16:00 17 Feb 2009 AEDT

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Investor appetite for gold companies continues to strengthen in the face of rising gold prices. In addition to well-established mining destinations for gold, several equally promising new destinations have started to emerge. Eritrea is one such destination, where TSX (NSU) and NYSE Euronext (formerly AMEX: NSU) listed Nevsun Resources has its operations. Readers of course are familiar with Nevsun.

Another emerging gold company in Eritrea is Canadian Venture listed Sunridge Gold Corp. (TSX.V: SGC). Sunridge has a portfolio of gold prospects in Eritrea and has been making steady progress with its development efforts. Following a series of positive news over the last few months, metallurgical results from the Gupo Gold Deposit on the company’s flagship Asmara Project have also yielded encouraging results. Gold cyanide extraction tests on four samples were conducted by SGS Mineral Services, Cornwall, UK ("SGS") resulting in 95% to 98% gold recovery.

These are indeed high recovery rates and bode well for Sunridge. High recovery rates may potentially reduce cost of production should Sunridge ventures into develop the Gupo Gold Deposit to a producing mine. While more results are required to make conclusions, these initial results offer considerable optimism surrounding Asmara project.

Sunridge intends to complete a new resource estimate and scoping study on the Gupo Gold Deposit in order to determine the economics of a low-cost, open-pit, heap-leach gold operation. Unlike many other junior mining companies, Sunridge has $6.5 million in its treasury and is well funded to carry out these activities.

The mineralized material at Gupo is divided into an upper oxide zone and underlying sulphide zone. Two representative samples from recent diamond drill holes completed by Sunridge were taken from each zone. SGS's test work was designed to investigate the amenability of the samples to cyanide leaching with the samples were subjected head assays, grind calibrations and cyanide leach testing at three different grind sizes.The average gold recovery for Gupo Oxide has been 98.4% while that for Gupo sulphide samples have been 95.6%.

Currently, the Gupo Gold Deposit contains a NI 43-101 compliant inferred gold resource of 1,965,000 tonnes grading 2.99 grams per tonne gold containing 189,000 ounces of gold. This resource does not include results from 26 holes that were reported in a recent news release.

Management of Sunridge believes that the Gupo Gold Deposit could have the potential to be a low cost, open-pit, heap-leach gold mine. The area has excellent infrastructure and favourable terrain for open-pit mining. New drill results may well lead to increased resource estimation. In addition, Gupo's proximity to Sunridge's large Emba Derho Deposit could provide additional oxide gold mineralized material to any future operations. Emba Derho has an oxide gold resource of 3.5 million tonnes grading 0.84 grams per tonne gold containing 95,000 ounces of gold in a NI 43-101 compliant indicated resource.

So it is good news all around at Sunridge. A scoping study is currently underway at Emba Derho and is expected to be completed in 1Q2009. We will be following Sunridge and will keep our readers updated.

About Sunridge


Sunridge Gold Corp. is a mineral exploration company focused on the acquisition, exploration, discovery and development of precious and base metal projects. The Company has its main operations in Eritrea and has several gold prospects. In addition, Sunridge has a portfolio of gold and base metal prospects in Madagascar.

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