San Anton Announces Progress With Engineering Study at the Cerro de Gallo Project
San Anton Resource Corporation announced today that it is progressing with its study work on the Cerro de Gallo Project in Mexico which will result in the completion of a more detailed pre-feasibility study rather than a scoping study The study work for the Cerro de Gallo project has been proceeding well over the past few months. The updated resource model, announced in June 2008, includes an increase in total tonnage of 44% and increase in contained metal of 25%. The resource classification confidence was also increased to 73.5% of total tonnes and 81% of contained metal in the Measured and Indicated categories, more appropriate to this more detailed study.
As a direct result of this large increase of the resource estimation at the project, San Anton Resource Corporation is evaluating the best methodology to capitalise on the metal content of the project. San Anton’s site geologists, under the management of Mr. Bill Fleshman, are under taking a modelling program that includes re-logging core and RC chips. This evaluation program will provide the data required to expand the resource model, the geological understanding and hence enable further metallurgical test work drill hole locations to be determined for more accurate sampling. The variability within the deposit can then be tested while considering the various process options.
The re-logging programme is expected to be completed by the last quarter of 2008. This will allow the resource to be remodelled with updated geological and mineralogical data to provide an improved understanding of the resource and to enable more detailed metallurgical test work to be done including a comprehensive variability test work programme.
To date, two main phases of metallurgical work have been completed by SGS Lakefield Oretest Pty in Australia. The test work initially focused on samples from the Gold Zone and process options to recover gold and silver. The options considered included heap leach, bulk leach and feed upgrading followed by leaching. As more exploration data was collected and the understanding of the mineralization developed, identification of additional zones were included in the resource. This lead to a shift in the metallurgical program in 2007 to determine if copper would also be recoverable along with gold and silver in the form of a saleable concentrate, using flotation. This has been shown to be the case. However, this metallurgical testwork must still be regarded as preliminary, bearing in mind the current level of project engineering.
John Cook, President & CEO, said that “We are very encouraged with the metallurgical results to date as the flotation test work indicates that copper can be recovered to a saleable grade concentrate from the Copper and Gold Zone material. At the same time, results from the leach test work indicate that gold is readily recoverable using a standard cyanide leach process, with good kinetics.”
He added that “during the course of increasing the confidence in the resource estimate, to mainly measured and indicated categories, and with results from the preliminary metallurgical test work mentioned above, further opportunity has been identified to better understand and exploit this significant Copper-Gold-Silver resource of Cerro de Gallo.”
John Cook, concluded “We believe that the company is well positioned to allow us to have a much better understanding of the deposit and the most profitable way to exploit it. We are confident that these additional months of work will result in defining a better approach to the successful development of the project and consequently its economic viability.”
John Skeet, the Principal Consultant to San Anton Resource Corporation from Kings Minerals, will be leading all the activities related to the completion of the Pre-Feasibility Study. Mr. Skeet is a member of the Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AussIMM) and has over 20 years of experience in the mining industry. He holds a B. App Sc. (Met.) from the Ballarat University. He recently managed the permitting and development of the Palmarejo Silver-Gold project in Mexico for Bolnisi Gold, prior to the takeover by Coeur d’Alene, managed the development and construction of Bolnisi’s gold heap leach in the Republic of Georgia and has managed numerous operations and projects in Australia
John will be working closely with Bill Fleshman, Project Manager for the San Anton project. Bill is a geologist with 33 years of continuous experience in the mining industry, managing exploration and development projects in the United States, Australia, Myanmar, Mexico and Norway. Bill is a Chartered Professional member of the Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM). He has previously been involved with five exploration projects that were brought successfully into production. Bill will be overseeing the ongoing regional exploration and supporting current and future studies on the Cerro del Gallo deposit.
San Anton Resource Corporation is an exploration and development company that is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and is totally focused on the mining friendly jurisdiction of Mexico. The Company’s principal asset is a 61% interest in the San Anton Property (Goldcorp 39%), which hosts the near-surface Cerro del Gallo copper-gold-silver deposit. The Property is located in a historic gold-silver mining district and has only recently been subjected to modern exploration techniques. This work quickly identified several targets and has led to the delineation of a NI 43-101 Mineral Resource of 1.4 billion pounds of copper, 4.5 million ounces of gold, and 200 million ounces of silver. The deposit remains open in several directions. A US $10M program is underway to complete initial engineering and metallurgical studies, to continue expanding the Cerro del Gallo resource, and to drill nearby targets.
