Category: Uncategorized
- Published: 29 November -0001
News Release: First Drill Results from Essakan Main Zone
OREZONE RESOURCES INC. (ORZ.TSX) is pleased to announce results from the first eight holes drilled on the Essakan Main Zone in Burkina Faso, West Africa. Hole ERC364, a vertical Reverse Circulation (RC) hole that completely intersects the main orebody, returned 56m at 6.7 gAu/t. Holes ERC 365, 366 and 367 all intersected 30m to 50m wide mineralization along the eastern limb of the main zone. Hole ERC367 returned 50 metres at 2.2 gAu/t. Gold Fields Limited is funding the drill program as part of its option to earn a 50% interest in the property by spending US$8.0 million. Orezone is the operator of the program. Of significant interest, hole ERC366 intersected a new zone at the very bottom of the hole that averaged 4.0 gAu/t over 16m. The new zone lies below the main zone and adds new potential to expand sulphide resources at depth. Hole ERC366 will be extended and additional step-out holes will be drilled along the trend. Please see the following table for the results.
The drill program consists of 6000m of RC drilling in 70 holes, plus 600m of core drilling in 8 holes. Several of the above RC holes have been extended to greater depths with core drilling as indicated in the following table. The purpose of the program is to test Orezone's in house geological modelling of the main deposit and to investigate high priority targets surrounding the main deposit that have been identified by a soil sampling program. The first eight holes were drilled to intersect the eastern limb of the Essakan Main Zone, where Orezone's geologists expected to find continuous mineralization. The results confirm the modelling and indicate continuity of the ore from section to section in these particular areas.
The program was also designed to establish an assaying/sampling technique, which would accurately estimate the grade of the Essakan Deposit that is known to contain coarse gold. All samples were subject to a leaching process rather than a fire assay technique. For each sample, 5kg was pulverized to 75 microns, and then a 2kg portion was bottle-rolled for 24 hours. The results indicate that more than 99% of the gold was recovered. This method has proven to be very accurate as repeat samples reveal only a small variation. Previous published resources are based on a 50g fire assay technique where repeat samples indicate a much larger variation. Most importantly, the high and rapid leach recoveries indicate that the deposit is amenable to a leaching process and lower production costs.
'We are very pleased with these initial results,'says Ron Little, President of Orezone. 'There are already indications of expanding our resources at depth and if the preliminary results continue we could expect an increase in the previously published grade and total ounces of the deposit.' The drill program is expected to continue until the end of June in order to test extensions of the main zone and several new significant targets discovered in the regional soil sampling program surrounding the main zone. More results are expected in the next few weeks as drilling continues.
Orezone is a well-funded mining exploration company with a significant land holding of advanced gold projects in Burkina Faso, West Africa. Orezone has a strategic alliance with Gold Fields Limited.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------Note: Samples were collected every 1m down the hole and analyzed at the Transworld laboratory in Tarkwa, Ghana, an internationally recognized laboratory. The extracted gold pregnant solutions are subject to atomic absorption determination and tails from samples returning values (greater than or equal to)1.0 gAu/t are subject to fire assay. A minimum of 10% of the samples is for QA/QC, which include duplicates, triplicates, standards and blanks. The program was carried out under the supervision of Jeffrey Ackert, VP Exploration, and qualified person for Orezone.
Hole East North Depth From To Length Grade Cut Grade Comments
30 gAu/t
UTM UTM m m m m gAu/t gAu/t All holes
vertical
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ERC364 184628 1592133 109 53 109 56 6.7 4.0 All RC
68 77 9 27.7 11.2
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ERC365 184670 1592042 102 34 74 40 1.9 1.9 RC 0 to
74m
46 50 4 5.7 5.7 Core 74
to 102m
84 94 10 1.0 1.0
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ERC366 184805 1591859 127 37 67 30 1.3 1.3 RC 0 to
67m
70 76 6 2.0 2.0 Core 67
to 127m
84 97 13 2.5 2.5
101 107 6 2.0 2.0
111 127 16 4.0 4.0 hole
ends in
zone
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ERC367 184815 1591810 110 20 70 50 2.2 2.2 RC 0 to
71m
56 70 14 3.9 3.9 Core 71
to 110
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ERC368 184865 1591781 127 27 34 7 1.7 1.7 RC 0 to
65m
49 52 3 1.5 1.5
68 78 10 1.7 1.7 Core 65
to 127m
102 107 5 2.5 2.5
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ERC369 184861 1591721 105 23 66 43 1.7 1.7 RC 0 to
78m
75 78 3 2.9 2.9 Core 78
to 105m
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EDD10 184723 1591929 138 42 61 19 1.9 1.9 All Core
46 53 7 3.5 3.5
129 133 4 12.4 12.1
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EDD11 184815 1591920 150 104 108 4 4.4 4.4 All Core
118 133 15 1.4 1.4
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For further information: Ron Little, President &CEO, OREZONE RESOURCES INC., 174 Cobourg St., Suite 201, Ottawa Ontario Canada, K1N 8H5, tel 613 241-3699, fax 613 241-6005, info(at)orezone.com, www.orezone.com
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