Renaissance digs in at Okvau
R
enaissance Minerals Ltd has found
a way to continue
working at its flagship Cambodia gold
project despite capital
markets deserting
junior exploration
companies.
The company capped off
a trenching programme at its
Area 1 target late June, which
is considered one of four priority targets within close proximity
of the project’s main Okvau gold
deposit.
“Anything we can find close to
Okvau, which is already over 1.2
moz, is going to more likely be
more economic than targets further afield,” Renaissance managing director Justin Tremain told
Gold Mining Journal.
“So our focus is on the 5km radius and we’ll step out eventually
from there.”
Tremain said while trenching
wouldn’t be the company’s preferred method of exploration if
it was cashed up, Renaissance
had to be cognisant of the current economic climate and work
within its means.
“The frustrating bit is we’ve
been very much constrained by
funding as to how much exploration work we do outside of the
Okvau deposit,” he said.
“We’re definitely not constrained by targets. We’ve got a
lot of targets that are now ready
to be drilled, but you have to do
that prudently given the share
price and funding constraints.
We’ve taken an opportunity to
do a lot of low cost exploration
around geochemistry and mapping, which helps us better define and better understand the
targets, as well as identifying
new targets. The more work we
can do in planning the drilling,
the more we de-risk that expenditure on the drilling and the more
targeted the drilling programmes
will be.”
Tremain said the trenching
programme had renewed the
company’s confidence in Area 1,
which was the subject of a lacklustre drilling campaign earlier
this year.
“At the Okvau deposit … the
main control of the mineralisation
there is the contact of the diorite
intrusion and the surrounding
sediments,” Tremain said.
“We get best mineralisation
within the diorite, but nearer to
the contact, and the further you
The trenching programme returned positive results, including
an intersect of 17m @ 2.9 g/t gold
Renaissance managing director Justin Tremain (centre) inspects
work on site at the company’s Area 1 prospect
go away from that contact the
less continuous the mineralisation is. The first pass drilling at
Area 1 was targeting that contact,
but the interpretive contact was
based on aeromagnetics and
surface mapping. As it turned
out, of all the holes we drilled
there, which was about 17 holes
in total, only one or two holes
tested that contact because the
diorite was more extensive than
what we originally mapped and
it pushed further out to the east.
So the vast majority of the drilling
that was done previously wasn’t
drilling through the contact. It
was just in the diorite. The results
were a little bit disappointing, but
now that we understand the geology that explains it.”
Trench work at Area 1 returned
17m @ 2.9 g/t gold (including 9m
@ 4.8 g/t), 5m @ 3.6 g/t and 4m
@ 3.9 g/t.
Tremain said anomalous gold
in soil continued for more than
800m around the trenches and
Renaissance was excited about
drilling in the region shortly.
Adding ounces to Okvau by
the way of regional and local drilling was the priority for Renaissance in the coming six months,
according to Tremain.
Okvau’s current 1.2 moz @ 2.5
g/t gold resource only included
work up until March 2013, but
results from Renaissance’s April
drilling programme could change
that, he said.
“We obviously want to grow
July – September 2014 GOLD MINING JOURNAL
the resource significantly from
where it is at the moment and
we think that growth will not only
come from extending the Okvau
deposit but from these other targets as well,” Tremain said.
“We just don’t think Okvau …
will sit there in isolation when
you’ve got all this other anomalous geochemistry within the region. We think there are tremendous opportunities to make new
discoveries.”
Renaissance wasn’t far off
starting work on a scoping study
for the project, Tremain said.
Recent metallurgical results
gave Renaissance more confidence in pushing Okvau into
production.
Total gold extraction of between 88% and 90% was
achieved via coarse grinding and
floatation, fine grinding of a low
mass concentrate and conventional cyanide leaching of concentrate and floatation tails.
“That really de-risks the Okvau
deposit quite significantly,” Tremain said.
“That makes it far more appealing [to investors] and obviously the grade of 2.5 g/t and
recoveries of 88% bodes well for
the economics.”
Tremain said he expected
exploration beyond Okvau’s to
begin in October, which would
include work at the company’s
O’Chhung prospect.
– Rhys Dickinson
Page 39