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First gold was poured at the White Mountain Gold Mine in October 2008, only four years after the orebody was discovered by Sino Gold.
Gold production averaging 65,000 ounces per annum is planned to result from design mill throughput of approximately 650,000 tonnes per annum and overall gold recoveries averaging 80%. Production is expected to ramp up to these levels over the course of 2009.
White Mountain is located 230km south-southeast of Changchun, the capital city of Jilin Province in northeast China.
In mid-2003, Sino Gold acquired an initial 80% interest in the White Mountain joint venture. In mid-2006, the Company increased its equity in the joint venture to 95%, which now holds Exploration Licences in the district totalling 128 square-kilometres.
A major northeast trending regional fault zone hosts the gold mineralisation at White Mountain, with mineralisation known to extend 1.5km along strike.
Gold mineralisation at White Mountain is primarily hosted by a silicified pyritic breccia in a fault zone between “hanging wall” quartzite and ‘footwall’ silicified dolomite. The dip angle of the mineralised fault zone averages 45 degrees to the southeast.
Pyrite and barite are associated with the gold mineralisation, but levels of arsenic, antimony and mercury are low.
Gold in silicified pyritic breccia
Exploration work at White Mountain has comprised geological mapping, ground geophysical (IP) survey, trenching, aditing and diamond drilling (302 holes to January 2008).
In February 2008, White Mountain increased the:
- Mineral Resource to 12.4 million tonnes at 3.0g/t gold, containing 1.2 million ounces gold; and
- Ore Reserve to 6.5 million tonnes at 3.8g/t gold, containing 784,000 ounces.
The long section below summarises the distribution of gold mineralisation within the February 2008 Mineral Resource.
Approximately 95km of diamond drilling has been completed at White Mountain to January 2008. Encouraging assay results during 2008 continued to extend known mineralisation down-dip from the northeast are of the resource. A summary of all assay results received to September 2008 with drillhole co-ordinates is available for download by clicking here.
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