LONDON (Alliance News) - SolGold PLC Tuesday said it is focusing on a high-grade area at its flagship Cascabel project in Ecuador which will "underwrite the future of the company" as it outlined its exploration plan.
If the company goes ahead with its new exploration plan, it will reduce the cost of drilling but also speed up the process and allow the company to drill a broader range of targets. Overall, the company is hoping the plan will lead to a maiden inferred resource for the project being delivered within the next 12 months.
The gold company said a high grade zone of up to 85 million tonnes at 3% copper equivalent is being targeted at the Alpala Central area at the Cascabel project, which the company said "can deliver a strong economic fingerprint which will underwrite the future of the company".
To speed up the drilling process, SolGold said it is currently contemplating bringing in a second rig to the project and said it will also drill deviated holes from six existing holes to increase the pierce points into the ore body at the project, which is effectively how many entrance holes are drilled into the ore body.
"This strategy has the capacity to save up to 24 days drilling for each deviation hole, enabling up to 10 penetrations per rig, per annum, an increase of up to 40% per rig. The second rig may also be used to extend the strike-length of the known copper-gold mineralization at Alpala, which remains open," said the company.
If the company elects to move a second rig to the site, it will drill 20 more holes than originally planned and reduce the all-in costs of drilling to USD480 per metre from USD720.
SolGold shares were down 1.7% to 3.05 pence per share on Tuesday morning.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
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SolGold (SOLG)