Bravo Gold progresses Homestake Ridge activities, initial goal of 100,000 oz a year

Bravo Gold (CVE:BVG) reported Thursday that engineering, scoping and exploration work are well underway at its Homestake Ridge project in northwestern British Columbia.
The company is currently advancing the property as a potential high-grade underground mining operation and, since 2003, has spent $30 million on the project, resulting in the discovery and delineation of two significant mineral deposits.
The basis for the engineering work is Bravo's NI 43-101 compliant indicated resource, using a of 191,000 ounces of gold and 1.35 million ounces of silver, at a 3.0 g/t gold equivalent cutoff. In addition, the project also hosts an inferred resource of 530,000 ounces of gold and 13.47 million ounces of silver.
"The company's initial goal is annual production of 100,000 ounces of gold-equivalent per year from a processing plant with a capacity of 2,000 tonnes per day over a 10-year mine life," said Fred Sveninson, who is directing in-house scoping work for the property.
"The engineering studies are being directed to such an annual production and the current drilling program is designed to increase the existing resource in order to attain this goal."
Consulting firm Knight Piesold has also developed preliminary alternatives for providing power to the site, including connecting to the main power grid at two possible locations, developing run-of-river power, and rejuvenating historic hydro power in the area.
The firm is as well determining the best location for plant and tailings facilities and associated costs.
With regards to metallurgical testing, a total of 77  kilograms of individual samples were sent to the lab in June and combined to form a representative composite sample grading 3.43 grams per tonne of gold and 119 g/t silver. Mineralized intersections comprised of quartered core from eight diamond drill holes from the 2010 drill program.
Preliminary testing of the composite sample, using conventional gravity and flotation processes, indicated that an overall gold recovery of 85% to 90% can be consistently obtained, Bravo said, with a silver recovery of 83% to 87%.
In addition, an exploratory IP survey of 15-line kilometres has been completed, with results included into the targeting for the current drill program, particularly encouraging in the area to the southeast of the Homestake Silver deposit, Bravo said.
Eleven core holes totaling 2,765 metres of a planned 5,000 metre program have been completed, with assays pending.
Drilling is currently testing offsets of previously reported holes from the 2010 program, both located along the southeast margin of the Homestake Silver deposit where an IP anomaly has been identified.
The program will continue through the month of September, when drilling efforts will shift to the adjacent Kinskuch project, the company said.
Bravo also holds a 13 percent equity interest in Bravada Gold Corporation, which is exploring 22 projects in Nevada and developing its 100% owned Wind Mountain mine.