Ore outlined at Cerro San Pedro

A prefeasibility study on the Cerro San Pedro heap-leach gold-silver project in central Mexico has outlined nearly 2 million oz. gold-equivalent.

Owner Metallica Resources (TSE) estimates a preliminary minable reserve of 60.7 million tonnes grading 0.66 gram gold per tonne and 23.8 grams silver. The kriged geological resource at Cerro San Pedro, on which the minable reserve is based, has increased to 109.7 million tonnes grading 200.63 grams gold and 16.8 grams silver per tonne (above a cutoff grade of 0.3 gram gold per tonne).

Metallica says these grades are comparable to many of the large-scale, heap-leach deposits being mined in the western U.S. and elsewhere.

Minable reserves at Cerro San Pedro are in an engineered open-pit (including access roads and ramps) which contains 165 million tonnes, generating an overall stripping ratio of 1.7 tonnes of waste per tonne of ore. The minable reserve total was calculated at gold and silver prices of US$400 and US$5.45 per oz., respectively.

Both the resource and reserve calculations have been confined to 600 metres of strike length within the mineralized system at Cerro San Pedro. By comparison, the company’s work to date has encountered well-mineralized drill intercepts extending over at least 1,000 metres of strike length, 400 metres of width and 200 metres of thickness.

Metallica has embarked on a 17,000-metre program of winter drilling at the property to define and expand the known minable reserves. The deposit remains open to the north, south and west, and Metallica anticipates that, as the resource is expanded northward, the topography of the area will allow for an overall decrease in the deposit’s stripping ratio.