1.00pm
Oceana Gold is excited about the potential for a gold mine at Sams Creek northwest of Takaka, the company's principal exploration geologist Lachlan Reynolds says.
Speaking at the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy annual conference in Nelson yesterday, Mr Reynolds said the latest exploration data indicated that 776,000 ounces of
recoverable gold lay in the area.
This is an increase of almost 50,000 ounces from figures the company released a year ago.
However, Oceana Gold, formerly GRD Macraes, believes, with further exploration, the amount of recoverable gold at the site could dramatically increase, making the potential mine an attractive and viable proposition.
"We know there is potential for quite an amazing deposit, and it would only take a drill hole in the right area (to confirm this)."
Mr Reynolds said a million ounces of recoverable gold needed to be found at the site for the mine to be economically viable.
"Given the expense, this is the region where we have got a realistic project."
Oceana Gold is particularly excited about the prospects for Sams Creek as it has geological similarities with other large intrusion-related gold deposits worldwide.
Mr Reynolds said it was almost impossible to say how long it would take before the company knew if the project was viable.
However, he said the company was very committed to further investigations of the area.
Any talk of how the gold would be recovered would be "purely speculative" until the company had a complete picture of the deposits at the site, Mr Reynolds said.
He believed, although he would not rule it out, that an open mine in the area would not be feasible.
"My personal feeling is it would be difficult to define an open mine, but there is scope for an underground operation."
Any mining of the area could draw the ire of environmentalists, as it is bordered by the Kahurangi National Park on three sides.
The Sams Creek gold deposit was discovered by CRA Exploration geologists in 1974, who explored the site between 1980 and 1987. Oceana Gold acquired the Sams Creek exploration tenement in 1991, and began exploring the area in 2002.
- NZPA
