Griffin Mining JORC-resource update provides 35 year mine life for Caijiaying in China

Griffin Mining (AIM: GFM) announced the latest JORC Mineral Resource for Zone III at its Caijiaying mine in the People's Republic of China.  The new JORC-compliant statement identifies extensive resources and a long mine life for the company’s continuing mining operations and adds 4.7m tonnes at 6.7% zinc, 0.9 grams per tonne (gpt) gold, 34.3gpt silver and 0.4% lead to the Measured Resource category.

On London’s AIM market share surged 9% to trade at 45.25p in the first hour of trading following the update.

"The new resource statement provides for a 35 year mine life within just the defined shallow resources at Zone III at the increased throughput level of 750,000 tonnes per annum expected to be reached in the later half of 2010”, Griffin Mining chairman Mladen Ninkov commented. “This new resource statement ignores the deeper ore in Zone III, the new resources at Zone II and the significant resources believed to be contained in the large area between the two zones”. 

The results confirm increased grade and Measured Resources, as previously reported in the 2002 micro-mine mineral resource estimate.

The Measured Resource at Zone III contains 318,000 tonnes of zinc, 131,000 ounces of gold, 5.2m ounces of silver and 19,000 tonnes of lead. The new statement also upgraded the Indicated and Inferred categories. There was a 36% Increase in the zinc grade and a 16% Increase in the gold grade for Caijiaying’s Indicated Resource, while in the Inferred category the zinc and gold resource was increased by 51% and 90% respectively.

According to Griffin, the resource statement reflects a conservative recalculation of the resource at Zone III, following 5 years of the grade control drilling. A 25,000m drilling program will cover both surface and underground drilling, which the company said may enable an estimate a JORC resource from the area between Zones III and II.