TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Jan. 10, 2011) - Carpathian Gold Inc. (TSX:CPN) (the "Corporation" or "Carpathian") is pleased to provide a review of the results, progress and achievements for 2010 and an outlook for 2011.
For 2010, the Corporation established goals for the continued advancement of its two wholly owned exploration/development projects, the Riacho dos Machados Gold Project, located in Minas Gerais State, Brazil, and the Rovina Valley Project which is a gold-copper porphyry system located in central Romania.
The Riacho dos Machados Gold Project is the more advanced of the two projects as it represents a near-term production project that will elevate the Corporation to a gold producing company. The primary objectives set out by the Corporation for 2010 were to:
In July of 2010, the Corporation announced an updated resource estimate in which the open pit portion of the resource contained 806,200 ounces in the measured plus indicated Category and 355,900 ounces in the inferred category. A large percentage of the inferred resource is situated at the bottom of the open pit as determined by the pit shell optimization program and the Corporation determined it would be prudent to conduct a follow-up drill program. The goal of the program was to upgrade additional inferred resources to the measured plus indicated category, particularly at depth, to ensure the proper mine design and scheduling was established so as to avoid the risk of the loss of those resources through the open pit mine plan as well as to lengthen the open pit mine life. This additional drill program was completed in late 2010 and it is now anticipated that an updated resource estimate will be completed in January of 2011. Initial results indicate that this program was successful in converting a high percentage of the targeted inferred resources that will be incorporated into the measured plus indicated category. This new open pit resource will then be incorporated into the final Feasibility Study to be released during the first quarter of 2011.
For the Rovina Valley Project, the Corporation set out the following objective for 2010:
All of the targeted objectives set out for this project for 2010 were accomplished. The PEA was released in March 2010, and established an economically viable, long mine life project of approximately 19 years producing on average approximately 200,000 ounces of gold plus 50 million pounds of copper per annum. The three deep drill hole program was designed to: 1) test the depth extension of the gold plus copper mineralization within the Ciresata porphyry system in the context of utilizing a bulk underground mining method as outlined in the results of the PEA; 2) confirm the geologic model for the deposit; and 3) begin upgrading the resource to measured plus indicated categories. The results of this drilling program met all of the objectives established and have successfully determined that the Ciresata porphyry system is open and could be significantly larger.
The technical reports for the conversion of the Rovina Exploration License to a Mining License have been completed with subsequent information as requested by the government being delivered.
At the Corporate Level during 2010, the following was achieved.
The following details the results and major achievements established in 2010.
Riacho Dos Machados ("RDM") Gold Project, Brazil
The open pit resource includes:
The underground resource includes:
The combined open pit and underground resource includes:
Of the total 2010 resource estimate, 99.2% of the measured and indicated resource and 51.4% of the inferred resource is located within a Whittle pit shell. The pit shell was obtained utilizing pit-optimizer software (Whittle Four-X) using appropriate mining and processing costs from the ongoing Feasibility Study, a US $950/ounce gold price and a 0.36 g/t Au cut-off grade. Within this open-pit shell, the measured plus indicated gold resource in the 2010 Resource Estimate has increased by 537,400 ounces, from 268,800 ounces to 806,200 ounces, a 200% increase compared to the 2009 Resource Estimate. Below the open-pit shell and excluding a 15-metre crown pillar, a higher-grade cut-off was utilized (1.09 g/t Au), based on potential economic parameters along with engineering considerations, to define a resource with underground mining potential.
The gold mineralization at RDM is situated within a continuous 14.0 kilometre long shear zone hosted in Precambrian metamorphic rocks with a demonstrated gold endowment. This shear zone is fully covered by the Corporation's mining concession and exploration licenses that extend over a continuous length of approximately 30 kilometres covering an area of approximately 22,000 ha. The most intensely explored zone and location of the current 2010 Resource Estimate only represents approximately 2.0 kilometres of the southern portion of this shear zone. There are numerous surface gold targets of similar gold grade that occur along strike within this shear zone and to date a total of seven (7) exploration targets have been outlined north of the open pit resource area and one to the south.
In addition to the strike extension targets and defined satellite exploration targets, the gold mineralization at RDM is also open at depth. Once the open pit is in production the Corporation plans to evaluate the underground resource, which is higher-grade that could add to the overall operation both in terms of extending the mine life of the Project and potentially increasing the annual production rate by an additional 50%.
Rovina Valley Project ("RVP"), Romania
RVP is comprised of three gold-copper porphyry systems discovered by the Corporation on its 100% owned Rovina Exploration License in central Romania. From 2006 to 2009, 181 diamond drill holes totaling 71,375 m have been completed on the project. In late 2008, PEG Mining Consultants Inc. ("PEG") completed a NI 43-101 resource estimate. This resource estimate is based on the drill results from each of the Colnic, Rovina and Ciresata porphyry deposits, utilizing diamond drill hole data from the 2006, 2007 and 2008 drilling campaigns, and is summarized below.
Base case cut-offs used in the table are 0.45 g/t Au eq. for the Colnic deposit, 0.70 g/t Au eq. for the Ciresata deposit and 0.30% Cu. eq. for the Rovina deposit.
Au eq. determined by using a gold price of US$675 per ounce and a copper price of US$1.80/lb as defined by PEG.
Metallurgical recoveries are not taken into account.
The 2008 resource estimate includes enough contained gold-only ounces (3.07 million ounces in the measured + indicated category and 3.89 million ounces in the inferred Category) to place the Corporation within the top tier of advanced-exploration companies (top 20) hosting resources that have not yet been developed. Drilling has indicated that the total resource size of this project has not yet been fully defined and further immediate potential exists to expand the current resource estimate. Essentially every drill hole in the Ciresata porphyry bottomed in higher-grade gold and copper mineralization. In addition, results from a soil-geochemistry in-fill program highlighted a coincident gold + copper anomaly extending 300 metres west from the present drill hole pattern with >10 ppb gold and >20 ppm copper. This anomaly is a high priority drill target for extending the Ciresata mineralization laterally.
During 2010 the following activities were completed.
The onsite metallurgical facility will include conventional unit operations such as crushing, grinding, froth flotation and dewatering to produce a gold-rich copper flotation concentrate. Ore processing will utilize an industry-standard flotation process-only at a rate of 40,000 tonnes per day to produce a gold-rich saleable copper concentrate containing 18 to 22% Cu and 50 to 60 g Au/t. This process does not require the use of cyanide.
A summary of the PEA results is provided below.
There has been no previous commercial mining activity at RVP and the proposed mine site footprint as defined by the PEA does not include any known protected heritage sites or archaeological occurrences and has been designed to minimize impact in the nearby communities of Rovina and Bucuresci.
Highlight intersections from the 2010 deep-drilling program at Ciresata are as follows:
Drill hole | From (m) | To (m) | Length (m) | Au (g/t) | Cu (%) | Au-eq* (g/t) |
RGD-16 | 142 | 933 | 791 | 0.63 | 0.14 | 0.92 |
Including | 316 | 524 | 208 | 1.13 | 0.19 | 1.53 |
RGD-17 | 160 | 876 | 716 | 1.14 | 0.16 | 1.47 |
Including | 216 | 460 | 244 | 1.70 | 0.22 | 2.15 |
RGD-18 | 221 | 930 | 709 | 0.63 | 0.14 | 0.92 |
Including | 309 | 890 | 581 | 0.66 | 0.16 | 1.00 |
Including | 320 | 483 | 163 | 0.74 | 0.15 | 1.02 |
* To estimate Au-eq (Gold Equivalent) a gold price of US $1,000 and a copper price of US $3.00/lb is used.
Hungary
No fieldwork was completed in Hungary during the year and the Corporation will be terminating its activities within the country.
2011 Outlook
The Corporation's priorities are to continue to advance the RDM Gold Project towards a construction decision as well as to continue to advance and expand the resources at the Rovina Valley Project. The following lists the major objectives for 2011.
RDM Gold Project, Brazil
Rovina Valley Project, Romania
Further details on the Corporation and the individual projects can be found on the Corporation's website at www.carpathiangold.com.
Mr. Titaro is the qualified person (as defined in National Instrument 43-101) overseeing the design and implementation of the present exploration programs. He is responsible for preparing the technical information contained in this news release.
About Carpathian
The Corporation is an exploration and development company whose primary business interest is developing near-term gold production on its 100% owned Riacho dos Machados Gold Project in Brazil, which is currently in the Feasibility Study stage, along with progressing its exploration and development plans on its 100% owned Rovina Valley Au-Cu Project located in Romania. On a company wide basis, the Corporation currently hosts 43-101 resources of 3.88 million ounces of gold in the measured plus indicated categories and 4.58 million ounces of gold in the inferred category, as well as 759.1 million pounds of copper in the measured plus indicated category and 663.1 million pounds of copper in the inferred category.
The Riacho dos Machados Gold Project, which is in the final phase of a Feasibility Study, is targeted to produce in the order of 100,000 ounces of gold per annum, with construction targeted by management to be initiated in early to mid 2011 with an anticipated goal for the commencement of production in late 2012. The Rovina Valley Project will enhance the Corporations growth profile as a mid-tier gold producer.
Forward-Looking Statements: This press release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". Forward-looking statements are frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "Project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate", and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address future exploration drilling, exploration activities and events or developments that the Corporation expects, are forward-looking statements. Although the Corporation believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices, exploitation and exploration successes, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated statements. The Corporation undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.
Contact Information: Carpathian Gold Inc.
Dino Titaro
President & CEO
+1(416) 368-7744
+1(416) 260-2243 (FAX)
info@carpathiangold.com
or
Carpathian Gold Inc.
Mike O'Brien
Manager Investor Relations
+1(416) 368-7744
+1(416) 260-2243 (FAX)
info@carpathiangold.com
www.carpathiangold.com
or
Paradox Investor Relations - Montreal
+1(514) 341-0408 or 1-866-460-0408
+1 (514) 341-1527 (FAX)
info@paradox-pr.ca
or
Seton Services, UK
Toni Vallen
+44 207 224 8468
toni@setonservices.co.uk