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Banro improves on early gold estimates
By Jim Jones, posted: '26-MAY-05 15:00' GMT © Mineweb 1997-2004
JOHANNESBURG (Mineweb.com) -- Way back before the country that is now the Democratic Republic of Congo slumped into anarchy, and during periods when some normality reigned under the rule of the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, records of gold mining and results from gold prospecting were maintained as efficiently as possible. Nowadays, they are available to prospectors and miners with the courage to be early birds in a country going through a renaissance.
The renaissance is inevitably patchy. The Congo is not completely at peace with itself or with some of its neighbours. But it is gradually getting there and several miners, such as South Africa’s Metorex, which is targeting cobalt and copper, see the opportunities and the potential. Returns have to be high to compensate for real and perceived risks.
And, when you have access to earlier geological sampling results, exploration companies need to verify or confirm the earlier information before a project can be contemplated. Which was where the likes of Canadian gold explorer Banro come in. They are, if you will, the pioneers at the sharp and, hopefully, significantly profitable end of development.
Banro owns four exploration properties extensive exploration zone in the Twangiza-Namoya gold belt of the eastern Congo where gold has been known and has been mined in stockworks and vein deposits for many years. The company took over earlier gold sampling results and is now in the process of verification.
Before Banro started its adit sampling programme in February, independent appraisal by geological consultancy Steffen, Robertson & Kirsten had estimated an inferred gold resource of 10.2 million tons grading 3.6g/t gold on the Namoya project. Current sampling is providing results that point to an upgrading of the original resource estimate and with reported grades anging from 1.71g/t to 5.95g/t. And Banro president and CEO Peter Cowley is confident.
The company is not there yet, but its aim is to improve the reserves categorisation from inferred to the more-certain measured and indicated. Progress toward the goal is more advanced at Namoya, where most of the geological work has centred. It is less advanced at the Lugushwa property where estimates based on available historical data put the inferred resource at 37 million tons grading 2.2g/t. That is tentative, don’t forget.
It is not easy to prospect in the eastern Congo, particularly during the rainy season which is approaching. But now that the geological teams are in place, prospecting results should become a more regular feature of reports.
The Congo might seem to be politically risky – it still is to some extent. But companies such as Banro are not committing vast fortunes to the country, not, that is, in relation to the possible value that will be added to an undeveloped property by solid geological information. Then it becomes a question of how to turn the properties to account – sell them to a miner or develop them oneself.
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