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JANUARY 2016 • E&MJ; 13 www.e-mj.com Detour Gold has reported the final results from its 2015 summer drilling program at its Lower Detour project, located approximately 6 km south of its flagship Detour Lake gold mine in northeastern Ontario. An infill drilling program of 30,408 m in 55 holes was conducted at 50-m spacing to test the continuity and extent of the gold mineraliza- tion within the project's Zone 58N. The drilling continued to demonstrate the continuity of the Lower Detour gold mineralization at depth. Visible gold was observed in 46 of the 53 drill holes that tested Zone 58N. To date, gold mineraliza- tion has been intersected over an east-west strike length of 450 m and from surface to a depth of 800 m. The mineralized system remains open at depth. Detour Gold is continuing its Lower Detour drilling campaign this winter with an infill and step-out drilling program of up to 75,000 m. Detour Gold COO Pierre Beaudoin said, "The upcoming drilling pro- gram will provide the answers we need before we make the decision to start an underground exploration program at Zone 58N." Lower Detour gold mineralization is mainly found within the southern portion of an altered feldspar porphyry intrusive char- acterized by brittle deformation, containing quartz and/or quartz-tourmaline veins with up to 5% pyrite and multiple occurrences of visible gold. The thickness of the feldspar porphyry can exceed 100 m, although individual mineralized lenses are typically up to 30 m in width. The feldspar porphyry narrows to the east and west. ( www.detourgold.com ) Exploration Briefs Harmony Gold has announced an initial, JORC-compliant inferred mineral resource for its Kili Teke copper-gold deposit in Papua New Guinea. The resource totals 128 million metric tons (mt) grading 0.4 % copper, 0.3 g/mt gold, and 170 ppm molybdenum, with contained metal coming in at 506,000 mt of copper, 1.2 million oz of gold, and 22,000 mt of molybdenum. The Kili Teke deposit is the first new porphyry copper-gold deposit defined in Papua New Guinea since the Golpu dis- covery in the early 1990s. The resource has been defined over a zone 600 m long, by 300 m wide, by 400 m deep. The min- eralization remains open at depth and along strike. High-grade zones of copper- gold skarn mineralization have not yet been included in the modeling. The mineralization extends to surface and is accessible to open-pit mining. Preliminary metallurgical test-work has produced good copper and gold recoveries and clean concentrates. The project bene- fits from proximity to key infrastructure, including roads and power. Diamond drilling is ongoing at Kili Teke, with two rigs on-site to accelerate infill and extension drilling. Recent intercepts not included in the resource estimate include 144 m grading 0.53% copper and 0.23 g/mt gold from 610 m and 374 m grading 0.51% copper, 0.27 g/mt gold, and 173 ppm molybdenum from 391 m. ( www.harmonygold.za ) Alacer Gold reported that exploration drilling in 2015 successfully identified oxide mineralization in several prospects within convenient haulage distance of its Turkey. The mineralization occurs in a series of potential satellite open pits with- in 5 km to 7 km of existing operations, and preliminary metallurgical test work indi- cates that the mineralization has the potential be processed through the existing crushing and agglomeration circuit and stacked on the existing heap-leach pad. cate that the prospects may be connected through a greater mineralized system, potentially leading to additional discover- ies. Alacer President and CEO Rod Antal said formal reporting of the 2015 explo- ration discoveries as resources is a key objective for the company in 2016. duce between 190,000 and 210,000 oz of gold in 2015 at all-in sustaining costs of $700 to $750/oz. Alacer has a mid-term objective of increasing this production rate ( www.alacergold.com ) Newcrest Mining has entered into a farm- in agreement with Oro Verde Ltd. to explore for large, high-grade epithermal gold deposits on the Topacio gold project in southeastern Nicaragua. The project has an historical NI 43-101-compliant inferred resource of 2.7 million mt grading 3.9 g/mt gold, containing 340,345 oz of gold at a 1.5 g/mt gold cut-off. Newcrest will sole fund an initial mini- mum commitment of $500,000 of direct expenditure on the Topacio project within the first 12 months to test the potential for a large-scale, mineralized epithermal gold system. Once the minimum commitment is satisfied, Newcrest may elect to continue to farm-in by sole funding additional expenditure on the project of $2.2 million by August 25, 2017. If all terms of the agreement are satis- fied, Newcrest may eventually earn a 75% interest in the project through expenditures of $7.9 million. Oro Verde Managing Director Trevor Woolfe said, "We are delighted to have attracted a partner of the calibre of Newcrest. Its technical expertise in explo- ration and discovery of epithermal deposits is first class, and its track record of taking pro- jects from exploration through to develop- ment and production will provide the best possible chance for Topacio to be a success." ( www.oroverde.com.au ) Nevsun Resources' drilling on its Harena mining license 10 km south of its Bisha processing plant in Eritrea, East Africa, continues to produce encouraging results. The Harena mineralization displays a con- sistent metal zonation pattern, with a spha- lerite and pyrite, zinc-rich upper zone and a chalcopyrite and pyrite, copper-rich basal zone. Several holes penetrating the basal zone have returned grades in the range of 2% to 4% copper, including a 24.2-m intercept grading 2.31% copper. Nevsun CEO Cliff Davis said, "Our drilling at Harena continues to produce excellent results. We are very encouraged by the higher zinc grades being encoun- tered at depth in addition to the continu- ous copper-rich zone. Harena remains open at depth, and there is still consider- able potential along strike to the north and south." ( www.nevsun.com ) REGIONAL NEWS - EXPLORATION ROUNDUP Detour Gold Drilling at Lower Detour Continues to Produce Positive Results