Crescent Pours Gold at Laverton

Crescent Gold joined the ranks of Australia’s gold producers in mid-March 2007 when it poured the first gold at its Laverton gold project in Western Australia. Initial production at the open-pit, heap leach project was from processing of low-grade material. The 1.5-million-mt/y-mill was scheduled to be fully on line in April. Expected annual production is targeted at 90,000 oz/y.

The Laverton project is located 250 km northeast of Kalgoorlie and 8 km east of Laverton. The site was previously mined by Sons of Gwalia until 1998 and is located close to several well-known gold sites, including Barrick Gold’s Wallaby and Anglogold Ashanti’s Sunrise Dam mines. An existing 1-million mt/y mill was refurbished and expanded to 1.5 million mt/y.

Crescent is currently exploring more than 20 mineralized targets on its Laverton land package. Reserve and resource estimates have been completed for nine of the targets. The project currently hosts an NI 43-101-compliant indicated resource of 20.1 million mt, grading 1.5 g/mt gold and containing 953,000 oz of gold and an inferred resource of 10.4 million mt, grading 1.4 g/mt gold and containing 479,000 oz of gold. The current four-year mine plan is based on probable reserves of 7.6 million mt, grading 1.6 g/mt and containing 400,000 oz of gold.