Drilling at Red Mountain Mining’s Batangas Gold Project in southern Luzon.

RED Mountain Mining has received high grade results from two diamond drill holes aimed at extending the South West Breccia (SWB) resource at the Lobo section of its Batangas Gold Project. The company has also started a definitive feasibility study (DFS) for Batangas with completion expected by December 2014.

A shallow hole tested immediately below a recent trench intersection of 19.4 metres @ 8.24 grams/tonne gold. The drilling intersected high-grade lode mineralization from surface of 5.35 metres @ 8.18 grams/tonne including 1 metre @ 18.5 grams/tonne. The intersection occurs immediately southwest of a fault with a normal offset of the lode, forming a boundary to the resource at surface.

A deeper hole tested the southwest plunging depth extension to the SWB resource, intersecting a 12 metre downhole fault zone. It returned 3.05 metres from 69.6 metres @ 4.51 grams/tonne including 1 metre @ 9.5 grams/tonne of brecciated quartz-barite-sulphide lode on the hangingwall side of the structure. The SWB lode mineralization remains open at depth.
All new drilling and trenching intersections will be incorporated into a JORC 2012-compliant resource upgrade. The updated resource will be the subject of a new optimized pit design for the DFS ore reserve estimation.

Red Mountain’s managing director Jon Dugdale says, “The recent deeper drill holes have allowed us to better understand the resource at depth and indicate that we may be able to deepen the proposed pit design for the DFS.

“The shallow hole is also significant as it confirms the high grades intersected in Trench 27 and highlights the potential for a very low cost start to the gold project.”

Mineral resources have been defined for the SWB shoot, with indicated and inferred resources totalling 194,000 tonnes @ 7.2 grams/tonne for 45,000 ounces. The company is focused on increasing high grade mineral resources through discovery of new, high grade, gold zones at Lobo. Drilling is in progress testing under recent, exceptionally high-grade gold trenching results from within the 500 metre-long SWB Lode south corridor on the Lobo MPSA.

Exploration targets have been defined for the SWB, Japanese Tunnel and Pica prospects and a continuous program of soil sampling, mapping, surface trenching and drilling continues with the objective of defining additional high-grade resources.

A scoping study released earlier this year has demonstrated a strongly viable, low capital and operating cost, gold development based on initially recovering 90,000 ounces of gold over 4.5 years. Final permitting submissions have completed and lodged with the Philippines Government for approval to develop the project.

John Dugdale says, “Our aim is to complete the DFS and all required permitting in parallel so that we are in a position to finance and develop the project from as early as next year.”