The latest results from drilling at the BKM deposit of Kalimantan Gold’s Beruang Kanan Copper Project in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, have demonstrated the potential to expand the copper resource. The results come from a further eight holes in the southern part of the prospect.

The best results are 3 metres from 35 metres @ 1.24% copper and 32 metres from 34 metres @ 1.34%. The company plans to drill 80 holes this year with 36 completed to date.

These results will be incorporated into the BKM database which will be used to prepare an updated resource estimate during the current quarter. This resource will form the basis of a Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) planned for completion in early 2016.

Kalimantan is currently sitting on 47 million tonnes of ore at 0.6% copper, with 12 million tonnes at 1% at BKM.

Kalimantan Gold’s chief executive Tony Manini says the company is on track with its program for Beruang Kanan and is very pleased with progress on its evaluation program for BKM.

“Drilling results continue to meet our expectations with good grade copper mineralization consistently intersected at shallow depths potentially amenable to low strip ratio open pit mining.

“These features of the deposit when combined with the positive initial results from metallurgical test work being undertaken to assess the potential for a heap leach, SX-EW project producing copper metal, are considered highly promising.

“While extensive work remains to compile all the inputs for a PEA, the operating team is performing exceptionally well and continuing to deliver to quality, quantity, time and budget,” he says.

Earlier this month Tony Manini said he was pleased with initial findings from metallurgical test work carried out on ore extracted from the BKM deposit. These suggested a mine using bacterial heap leaching and solvent extraction electro-winning (SX-EW) technology could be built at relatively low cost.

The metallurgical test work to date established that 95% of copper in all the samples assayed was acid and cyanide soluble. Not only that, acid consumption was very low during the various tests carried out. While good environmentally, the less acid used the lower the operating costs.

Tony Manini said the results would be significant in establishing the viability of BKM as an economic mine. “Projects utilizing this technology generally have lower capital intensity than those producing concentrate, and as copper metal is produced at the mine site the need for third party smelter involvement is eliminated. These are particularly relevant criteria for any copper development project in Indonesia at this time.”