Lomada Project

Property Location | Property Ownership | Geology | Previous Exploration | Exploration/Drilling | Resource/Development

SANTA CRUZ, ARGENTINA
Currently defined 235,000 Oz Au Oxide Resource and positive Scoping Study

 

La Paloma Property Block Location
The Lomada de Leiva Project is contained within the La Paloma Property block of exploration tenements located approximately 48km south southeast of Perito Moreno. Access to the project area, less than 1 hours drive from Perito Moreno, is via paved provincial highways and secondary dirt roads.

Geologically located in the northwest portion of the Deseado Massif geological province of southern Patagonia, this Jurassic aged volcanic complex is widely acknowledged as an emerging world class, epithermal Au-Ag mining district. Several producing and advanced stage gold-silver projects including Cerro Vanguardia- 4.4Moz Au equiv (AngloGold-Ashanti), Cerro Negro- +2.5Moz Au equiv (Andean Resources), Manantial Espejo- 1.2Moz Au equiv (Pan American Silver), San Jose- 1.99Moz Au equiv (Hochschild/Minera Andes) and Mina Martha- 22Moz Ag equivalent (Coeur D’Alene) are hosted in this metallogenic province.

Property Ownership
The Lomada de Leiva Project is contained within the La Paloma Group of concessions, which total 44 km², owned 100% by Patagonia Gold S.A (PGSA). These concessions were acquired in February 2007 from subsidiaries of Barrick Gold Corporation under an agreement which includes a back-in option clause on delineation of 2Moz Au or Au equivalent.

Lomada de Leiva Location Map

Geology
The geology of the Lomada de Leiva Project area comprises a sub-horizontal sequence of Jurassic aged, rhyolitic flow and ignimbritic rocks of the Chon Aike Formation, which are interpreted to occur peripheral to a large felsic flow dome complex.

Oxide gold mineralisation is localised in the near surface by a north-northeast trending, steeply east dipping structural corridor and containing brecciated and variably silicified volcanic and tuffaceous rocks which have been cut by a network of fine anastomosing quartz veins and veinlets. The breccia also contains clasts of chalcedonic quartz vein material. Gold is predominantly hosted in the kaolinized fault breccia matrix but is also reporting in the vein quartz and earlier chalcedonic veins over combined widths up to 30 metres.

Previous Exploration
At Lomada de Leiva previous owners conducted exploration between 2002-2004 at 42 which included diamond drill holes, trenching, surface sampling, geological mapping and electrical geophysics (CSAMT) which delineated the existence of significant Au mineralization throughout the project area as well as several targets which remain untested to date. Significant drill results from previous work in the Lomada de Leiva are summarized in the table below.

Historical significant drill intersections, Lomada de Leiva.

Hole Name From (m) Interval (m) Au (g/t)
DDH-LP05 49.00 3.44 3.16
DDH-LP05 86.75 3.29 5.34
DDH-LP05 92.00 5.05 2.26
DDH-LP07 36.00 11.00  5.33
including 38.60 1.40 15.80
DDH-LP07 49.00 17.00  5.45
DDH-LP11 6.80 3.20 5.30
DDH-LP11 12.00 17.60  9.08
including 15.00 1.00 24.70
DDH-LP12 65.90 8.40 1.84
DDH-LP12 78.65 10.00  3.13
DDH-LP13 70.30 5.75 1.36
DDH-LP14A 105.00 4.00 2.85
DDH-LP20 60.50 4.75 3.90
DDH-LP25 21.00 7.15 2.71
DDH-LP30 116.65 9.05 2.05
DDH-LP35 81.00 4.30 2.08
DDH-LP35 88.35 7.35 4.97
including 89.75 1.40 16.70
DDH-LP36 36.95 12.45  2.59
DDH-LP37 63.80 14.70  5.21
including 74.00 1.00 13.30
Exploration/Drilling
In 2007, in the Lomada de Leiva project area, Patagonia Gold completed 750m of sawn trench sampling and 38 diamond and 9 reverse circulation holes totalling 7,100m. Exploration drilling has delineated low sulphidation, epithermal Au breccia/vein style mineralization hosted within a moderately east-southeast dipping fault breccia, attaining widths up to 30m, which is currently defined over a strike length of 600m. The PGSA drill campaign reported significant intercepts including LLD-01: 18m @ 6.87 g/t Au, LLD-026: 10m @ 12.68 g/t Au, and LLD-034: 36m @ 4.78 g/t Au.

Hole No. From (m) Interval (m) Au  (g/t)
LPD-01 9.0 18.0  6.87
including 10.0 10.0  10.86
LPD-02 35.0 21.0  4.12
including 46.0 7.0 5.17
LPD-03B 90.0 13.0  7.36
including 94.0 6.0 13.66
LPD-04 63.0 8.0 1.19
and 97.0 12.0  1.32
LPD-06 64.0 24.0  3.05
including 82.0 5.0 7.16
LPD-07 38.0 20.0  2.66
including 48.0 4.0 5.89
LPD-09 73.0 12.0  2.01
and 88.0 10.0  2.07
LPD-11 38.0 8.0 2.46
LPD-14 90.0 3.0 2.29
LPD-16 95.0 19.0  3.60
including 97.0 5.0 9.00
LPD-17 137.0 2.0 3.14
LPD-18 102.0 5.0 3.08
LPD-21 100.0 8.0 1.29
LPD-22 29.0 1.0 9.90
LPD-23* 48.0 7.0 2.48
and 61.0 6.0 1.77
and 73.0 6.0 2.23
LPD-26 19.0 21.0  8.49
including 21.0 10.0  12.68
LPD-27 49.0 17.0  3.15
including 57.0 5.0 5.75
LPD-30 40.0 5.0  2.26
LPD-32 6.0 10.0  2.54
and 42.0 11.0  3.00
LPD-34 38.0 36.0  3.52
including 59.0 7.0 8.86
LLR-04 49.0 28.0  5.71
including 51.0 8.0 8.27
LLR-05 58.0 12.0  2.14
LLR-07 47.0 22.0  1.67
including 47  6 3.47
* with RC pre-collar //
Intersections may not represent true thickness





Resource & Development
Metallurgical testing was initiated for which preliminary results indicate a lower level average of 71% extraction in six hours and 85% extraction in 12 hours for mineralized oxide material, although some samples returned greater than 90% recovery after 12 hours. In October 2007 an independent 43-101 compliant resource calculation for Lomada de Leiva was completed by Chlumsky, Armbrust and Meyer, LLC (“CAM”) of Lakewood, Colorado which defined a resource of 235,000 ounces Au with an average grade of 0.84 g/t Au (at 0.3 g/t cut off), as shown in Table 3. At least 60% of the resource is classified as Indicated and Inferred.

In late 2007 CAM was commissioned to undertake a scoping study on the Lomada de Leiva resource. It will include preliminary mine design and planning and recommendations for further infill drilling in order to upgrade resources to the reserve category and advance toward the Pre-feasibility stage.

Patagonia Gold Plc completed a scoping study in 2008. It was compiled by CAM and was based on the previously released gold resource estimate on Lomada de Leiva.

The study involved investigating three processing cases; Direct Milling of the ore in a conventional mill; Heap leaching with a crushing stage to minus 12.5 millimetres for improved recovery and Run-of-Mine (ROM) heap leaching with lower capital cost and lower recoveries.

The ROM heap leaching was clearly the most attractive and profitable process and will now be used to advance the project toward production.

Highlights of the ROM heap leaching study (all currency in U.S. dollars): Low pre-production capital cost of $8.5 million recovered within 14 months of startup. Mine life of seven years based on an initial resource of 182,369 ounces of gold, with a production of 21,000 plus ounces of gold per year at a cash cost of $299 per ounce.

Project cash flow, before tax, is $35.3 million based on a price of $650 per ounce gold (oz.Au) and a recovery of 80%. After tax NPV at a 10% discount rate is $18.9 million.

Project cash flow, before tax, is $63.6 million based on $850 per ounce gold, and a recovery of 80%. After tax NPV at a 10% discount rate is $36.9 million.

Significant upside remains by increasing the size of the resource at Lomada de Leiva and the adjacent Breccia Sofia which would significantly extend the life of the Project.

CAM reported that there was a high potential to develop additional resources at Lomada de Leiva, both down dip and along strike to the south and in parallel structures identified by geophysics and drilling. In addition exploration drilling on the adjacent Breccia Sofia confirmed the presence of high grade gold and silver in mineralisation similar to Lomada de Leiva.

Metallurgical testing using the ‘bottle roll’ technique on a significant number of composite samples showed the ore at Lomada de Leiva to be very amenable to leaching with excellent recoveries averaging 97% in just 12 hours with material crushed to minus 0.075 millimetres.

For this reason and based on the 1.0 gram per tonne resource CAM elected to conduct the Scoping study utilizing a conventional heap leach operation and because of the prevailing high gold price a duplicate study utilizing a milling operation.

Processing-CAM prepared three conventional processes to be considered for the project. These include:

  • > Conventional grinding and milling followed by cyanide leaching and gold recovery from the activated carbon.
  • > Conventional heap leaching, with the ore crushed to 80% passing 12.5 millimetres, leached in 6 metre lifts and gold recovered on activated carbon.
  • > Conventional ROM heap leaching, with no crushing of the ore, leached in 6 metre lifts and gold recovered on activated carbon.

All of these processes are currently used in the industry.

The Capital costs for each process Total operating cost per oz.Au Gold Recovery

  The Capital costs for each process Total operating cost per oz.Au Gold Recovery
1-Milling $31.7 million $533 97%
2-Crush/Heap $19.5 million $385 93%
3-ROM $8.5 million $301 80%

Mining-Based on the estimated mineable material, CAM developed a mine and processing schedule at an average of 0.73 million tonnes of ore per year for 3 processing scenarios for the Lomada de Leiva Project.

Mining for the ROM heap leach scenario has an open pit mine shell designed for the mining of 4.7 million tonnes of ore and 5.9 million tonnes of waste (stripping ratio of 1.25) over a 7 year Life of Mine.

The average gold grade of ore mined is 1.2 grams per tonne for 182,369 contained ounces of gold. The recovery for the ROM heap leach process is estimated at 80% giving a total gold production of 145,895 ounces.

CAM assumed a contract miner would be used for the project since the project mining time frame is short.

Cash Flow and Sensitivity Analysis-The estimates of metal production, capital costs and operating costs are combined in the discounted cash flow evaluation. The economic evaluation is performed on a project basis, assuming 100 percent equity financing, with the base case utilizing a gold price of $650 per ounce of gold. All applicable royalties and export taxes have been allowed for in the cash flow analysis. The cash flows are pre-income tax for Argentina.

Factors assumed in the development of the above cash flow model include:

Sunk costs are not included. Payment of applicable royalties is included. Working capital allowance has been included.

Based on the results obtained to date the ROM heap leach is by far the most attractive and profitable process and will be utilized to advance the project through Feasibility studies towards production.

As a result of the positive Scoping study PGD has decided to progress the Project towards development with the aim of commencing production in the first half of 2010.

Bulk metallurgical column testing is in progress at SGS Lakefield Research in Chile to test the ore over varying times with varying quantities of reagents to optimise the recovery of the gold, (estimated to be 80% in the Scoping study).

Vector Argentina SA (Vector), who has been responsible for all of PGD’s exploration, environmental permitting for the past 3 years, has been engaged to provide the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) service for the production stage, scheduled for completion in June 2009.

Vector has also been engaged to develop an integral Base Line Study (BLS) for the Lomada De Leiva Gold project, scheduled for completion in October 2009.

A 1,500 metre drilling program will be carried out for geotechnical and sterilization purposes in May 2009 after which a full feasibility study will commence, scheduled for completion by the end of 2009.

PGD, assisted by Vector, is also preparing an application for an environmental permit, which would allow advanced exploration, for a trial Heap leach operation (trial) of 50,000 tonnes of ore. The trial is designed to field proof the column tests and to demonstrate that the Heap leach process is not harmful to the environment.

Once permitted, construction of the trial pad, mining and loading would take 3 months to complete. Irrigation would then commence with the first gold produced soon there after. The trial, based on 80% recovery, should yield circa 2,500 oz. of gold for the first 6 metre loading.

Management has estimated the total cost of development in 2009, up to the construction of the main Heap leach project, including all metallurgical testing, permitting, drilling and the cost of the trial, at approximately $1.9 million
Subject to permitting and performing to expectations, the trial could be loaded with at least 3 further 6 metre layers which should produce sufficient gold to contribute a substantial portion of the capital required for the main Heap leach operation.

Once in full production the main Heap leach should make PGD self sufficient in funding requirements for on going exploration at current levels of expenditure.

Hole
Section
Eastings
Northings
Elevation
Depth
Azimuth
Dip
LLD-001
N 8525
2381134.76
4798524.94
729.68
39.00
270
-60
LLD-002
N 8475
2381142.06
4798466.04
726.22
69.10
270
-50
LLD-003A
N 8475
2381189.46
4798467.27
723.08
60.00
270
-50
LLD-003B
N 8475
2381188.23
4798468.65
723.19
95.85
270
-50
LLD-004
N 8575
2381232.69
4798562.32
728.36
135.00
270
-50
LLD-005A
N 8575
2381275.15
4798565.11
732.55
68.50
270
-50
LLD-005B
N 8575
2381275.15
4798565.11
732.55
131.70
270
-50
LLD-006
N 8600
2381210.93
4798598.40
725.83
105.28
270
-62
LLD-007
N 8575
2381179.34
4798562.54
729.47
77.30
270
-50
LLD-008
N 8800
2381397.99
4798801.33
718.14
170.80
270
-50
LLD-009
N 8475
2381243.42
4798468.48
722.51
215.65
270
-50
LLD-010
N 8525
2381246.83
4798523.45
727.56
201.15
270
-60
LLD-011
N 8650
2381216.42
4798650.37
718.98
101.95
270
-50
LLD-012
N 8650
2381268.46
4798651.42
722.87
152.60
270
-50
LLD-013
N 8650
2381313.69
4798653.64
728.59
200.75
270
-50
LLD-014
N 8700
2381303.75
4798700.10
719.97
146.50
270
-50
LLD-015
N 8400
2381199.52
4798399.14
713.64
180.20
270
-60
LLD-016
N 8350
2381154.24
4798355.34
713.24
134.80
270
-50
LLD-017
N 8300
2381161.76
4798300.71
705.48
158.20
270
-50
LLD-018
N 8250
2381119.84
4798249.97
704.08
148.90
270
-50
LLD-019
N 8250
2381179.65
4798250.22
696.47
212.85
270
-50
LLD-020
N 8250
2381068.02
4798249.97
711.34
120.00
270
-50
LLD-021
N 8150
2381064.25
4798145.86
695.57
141.00
270
-50
LLD-022
N 8150
2381001.42
4798144.40
702.02
99.30
270
-60
LLDR-023
N 8500
2381208.27
4798501.23
725.67
142.65
270
-60
LLD-024
N 8150
2381156.32
4798146.90
684.35
225.00
270
-50
LLD-025
N 8100
2380975.15
4798097.71
696.00
190.30
270
-50
LLD-026
N 8500
2381136.54
4798498.63
728.62
66.20
270
-60
LLD-027
N 8525
2381166.79
4798521.75
728.49
102.10
270
-60
LLD-028
N 8100
2381080.37
4798100.17
686.55
180.00
260
-50
LLD-029
N 8400
2381021.23
4798399.70
716.86
188.80
90
-50
LLD-030
N 8300
2381066.42
4798297.04
717.66
87.00
270
-80
LLD-031
N 8475
2381299.11
4798468.65
725.44
227.65
270
-50
LLD-032
N 8400
2381107.84
4798400.77
725.94
76.30
270
-60
LLD-033
N 8400
2381271.83
4798401.93
713.37
179.80
270
-60
LLD-034
N 8425
2381137.67
4798434.42
723.72
95.10
270
-60
LLD-035
N 8250
2381279.99
4798250.40
683.45
259.15
270
-50
LLD-036
N 8650
2381368.71
4798655.53
738.70
225.00
270
-50
LLDR-037
N 8800
2381511.96
4798803.93
707.62
276.00
270
-50
LLDR-038
N 8800
2381563.33
4798804.48
702.38
363.25
270
-50
LL-039-D
N 8550
2381190.00
4798356.00
708.00
176.75
270
50
LL-040-D
N 8550
2381234.00
4798556.00
704.00
203.85
270
50
LL-041-D
N 8425
2381557.00
4798435.00
717.00
192.25
270
60
LL-042-D
N 8525
2381313.00
4798525.00
735.00
237.00
270
60
LLR-001
N 8750
2381263.15
4798749.32
704.74
81.00
270
-50
LLR-002
N 8750
2381322.43
4798750.06
714.85
117.00
270
-50
LLR-003
N 8425
2381181.60
4798435.04
719.62
140.00
270
-60
LLR-004
N 8425
2381139.87
4798434.15
723.73
111.00
270
-61
LLR-005
N 8350
2381104.64
4798354.92
719.81
120.00
270
-50
LLR-006
N 8350
2381193.00
4798357.52
708.58
141.00
270
-50
LLR-007
N 8300
2381077.40
4798299.75
716.32
80.00
270
-61
LLR-008
N 8100
2381132.18
4798101.27
681.27
155.00
270
-50
LLR-010
N 8800
2381453.90
4798800.47
720.37
108.00
270
-50

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