11 Jul 2011 08:05
11 July 2011
Hambledon Mining Plc
("Hambledon" or "the Company")
Activities Report for the Quarter Ended 30 June 2011
Hambledon Mining plc (AIM: HMB), the Kazakhstan gold mining and development company, today provides its operational report for the three months from 1 April to 30 June 2011. A copy of this report will be available on the Company's website, www.hambledon-mining.com
Production figures for the three months from 1 April - 30 June 2011:
| April | May | June | Total | |||||||||||||
| Milled tonnes (dry) | 70,154 | 75,227 | 74,294 | 219,675 | ||||||||||||
| Gold grade (g/t) | 0.84 | 1.0 | 0.99 | 0.95 | ||||||||||||
| Contained gold (gms) | 58,962 | 75,223 | 75,253 | 209,438 | ||||||||||||
| Contained gold (oz) | 1,895 | 2,418 | 2,419 | 6,732 | ||||||||||||
| Gold recovery % | 78.52 | 78.94 | 79.6 | 79.0 | ||||||||||||
| Recovered gold (oz) | 1,487 | 1,908 | 1,925 | 5,320 | ||||||||||||
| Recovered silver (oz) | 3,056 | 3,653 | 4,077 | 10,786 |
PROCESSING FROM OPEN PIT During the quarter ended 30 June 2011, the Sekisovskoye mining operation and the metallurgical plant processed a record 219,675 tonnes of material and produced a total of 5,320 ounces of gold and 10,786 ounces of silver. It was necessary to advance extraction of open pit waste material that was adversely impacting both production level and grade, and which in any event had to be completed at some stage this year. This necessitated mineral processing of a combination of open pit ore and lower grade ore from the stockpile and resulted in a lower overall grade. The lower level of open pit ore extraction does mean that the life of the open pit should be extended commensurately.
The operations team is working hard to complete the extraction of excess waste material. We expect to return to more normal open pit extraction and improved grades by Q4 2011. It must be noted that the plant performed very well with a record throughput in excess of its stated annualised capacity of 850,000 mt.
DRILLING As part of Hambledon's 18 month drill programme, the results of the latest holes completed will be announced as soon as they are available. The results released to date have been better than expected with an expansion of resources from all ore zones.
INFRASTRUCTURE The expansion of the engineering workshops and improvements to the high and medium voltage electrical system have commenced. The initial design of the new high voltage electrical line is complete and tenders have been issued for the installation of the line starting at the beginning of Q4 2011.
Tim Daffern, Chief Executive Officer of Hambledon, commented today: "Production levels during Q1 2011 at Sekisovskoye were encouraging, and while we aim to build on this we are continually striving to enhance our open pit operations. A decision was made during the quarter to advance the removal of open pit material which was necessary in order to optimise the performance of the open pit for the years to come. Gold production for the first half is 10% above that achieved in 2010. We look forward to updating shareholders with further results from our underground drill programme. We remain on track to begin underground extraction by the end of 2011''
Enquiries;
HAMBLEDON MINING: Telephone +44 (0)207 233 1462Charles Zorab
FAIRFAX I.S. PLC (NOMAD AND BROKER): Telephone +44 (0)207 598 5368Ewan Leggat/Katy Birkin
TAVISTOCK COMMUNICATIONS: Telephone +44 (0)207 920 3150Ed Portman/Jos Simson
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Altyngold (ALTN)