Crescent Gold produces 21,915oz gold at Laverton in September quarter

Crescent Gold (ASX:CRE, TSX:CRA) has produced 21,915 ounces of gold from its operations at the Laverton Gold Project, achieving its market guidance for the September Quarter.

The company has also now successfully transitioned the Mary Mac Hill open pit into production and is on track to commence development of the Apollo project.

With production commencing at its Mary Mac Hill deposit, and accelerating its newly developed Fish operation, Crescent processed 504,288 tonnes of ore at an average grade of 1.5g/t over its 39 day campaign at Barrick Granny Smith (BGS) under its Ore Purchasing Agreement.

Achieving an average gold price of $1,660, the company delivered net revenue of $36.6 million.

Mark Tory, Crescent's Gold managing director, said “this is an outstanding result reflecting the great work done by the operating team in the effective development of our new open pit operations at both Mary Mac Hill and Fish.”

Both Mary Mac and the newly developed Fish operations are now in full production mode and the company already has 300,000 tonnes of ore stockpiled at Barrick Granny Smith in preparation for the December quarter processing campaign (Campaign 9).

Campaign 9 is scheduled to run for 32 days and the company forecasts that between 17,000 and 19,000 ounces will be produced.

Focus Minerals (ASX: FML) successfully completed its off-market takeover of Crescent Gold earlier this month. The offer was strongly supported with 82.5% shareholder acceptance.

Crescent has laid the foundation for strong production in the December and March Quarters with the current results.
Apollo deposit

Later this month the Crescent team will mobilise a fourth digging fleet to commence mining at the Apollo deposit providing three separate ore sources in the lead up to the commencement of campaign 10 starting in early January 2012.

Apollo is considered a strong prospect for future production growth with a number of targets running to the north and south through the Chatterbox shear which we expect to become a major future source of production for the group.

Crescent announced a maiden 54,000oz proved and probable reserve at Apollo earlier in the year. The Apollo pit, which is currently planned to be up to 1.5 kilometres long, is situated on the Chatterbox shear zone some 7 kilometres to the west of the Laverton. Crescent also holds tenements along some 30 kilometres of the Chatterbox shear zone.

Mary Mac Hill deposit

Production commenced in the September Quarter from the Mary Mac Hill deposit which has a probable reserve of 306,000t at 1.8g/t for 18,000oz and continued at the recently developed Fish pit with a probable reserve of 292,000t at 3.5g/t for 33,000oz.

This was Crescent's eighth quarterly campaign under the OPA with Barrick Granny Smith.

Originally posted at: http://www.proactiveinvestors.com.au/companies/news/20806/crescent-gold-produces-21915oz-gold-at-laverton-in-september-quarter-20806.html