Petropavlovsk has announced the addition of 1.95m ounces (moz) of gold mineral resources (before depletion) following from the success of its 2012 exploration programme.
As such, there has been a net increase in its Joint Ores Reserves Committee (JORC) mineral resources of 0.45 moz to 25.1 moz, of which 10.0 moz are proven and probable.
Chairman Peter Hambro said: "This is the sixth consecutive year since we changed to JORC based reporting in which Petropavlovsk has increased its total JORC mineral resources and this is particularly good news in a year when the total has been depleted by a record annual production of more than 710,000oz of gold. It is also gratifying to note that the total number of new JORC Resources found in the year amounted to almost two million ounces.
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"This year we have focussed our exploration programme on areas at or close to our operating mines and in particular, on finding new, non-refractory resources. As a result, the majority of the 1.95Moz of new resources we have found are non-refractory and located at or close to our processing plants, requiring minimal capital expenditure to develop them.
"We have also identified a number of prospective targets at the Pioneer and Malomir licence areas that are yet to be fully explored and thus not included in today's statement but which, if proven, will delay our need to rely on refractory ore to fulfil our production targets."
Hambro also described the acquisition of Afanasevskaya, a licence north-west of Albyn in Ivanovskaya, and a licence close to and within the same geological trend as Pioneer and two new licences at Malomir, as looking "very promising".
In terms of on-going exploration, the company said its work is continuing to deliver positive results, some of which have yet to be fully reflected in the mineral resource statement.
Several new mineralised zones have been identified at Alkagan-Adamovskaya in the Pioneer mine, which are believed to have the potential to significantly expand the mineral resource base there.
At Albyn, exploration established a non-refractory mineral JORC mineral resource of around 1.3 moz at Elginskoye, while a new, prospective gold-bearing zone with a strike length of over 3.0km was identified within the Borovaya licence area of the Pokrovskiy mine.
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