JUNIOR MINING

Medusa’s rich gold intercepts in new Philippines finds

New high grade epithermal grade zones are shaping up for Philippines gold miner Medusa Mining Ltd, a company that took over the project in Mindanao Province which in an earlier life was in a diverse Australian company controlled by the late Australian media magnate Kerry Packer.

Author: Ross Louthean
Posted: Monday , 09 Jul 2007

PERTH - 

High grade intersections have been disclosed on two new discoveries at the Co-O gold project in the Philippines for Australian, London AIM and Frankfurt listed Medusa Mining Ltd, near the company's now commissioning Co-O mine.

The new discoveries, named the Jereme and New Catto Veins 1 to 5 are south of and parallel to the 1.5 kilometre long Co-O mine vein system, and managing director Geoff Davis said they were open in three directions.

Better results from the new drilling were:

• Jereme: Hole MD41: 1 metre grading 198.84 grams/tonne gold
• New Catto Vein 1: MD 34 - 2.7m @ 92.03 g/t; MD 35 - 1.7m @ 55.77 g/t and MD43 - 2.15m @ 58.88 g/t.
• New Catto Vein 3: MD 35 - 0.6m @ 75.39 g/t; MD41 - 1.35m @ 75.98 g/t and MD44 - 0.7m @ 42.29 g/t.
• New Catto Vein 4: MD 44 - 4.5m @ 20.05 g/t.
• New Catto Vein 5: MD 44 - 1.9m @ 79.05 g/t.

Diamond drilling started in December to define the Co-O mine, in preparation for a new resource estimate to be completed by late August. The last stated indicated-inferred resource for Co-O in early 2005 was 252,000 tonnes grading 29.72 g/t for 240,796 contained oz.

Davis said the tops of the New Catto Veins are believed to be between the same elevation as the bottom of existing shaft 3W at 3,050m and the new sub level at the 3,000m elevation.

"It is now apparent that some of the early holes have drilled over the top of some of the veins or were not deep enough," he said.

Jereme Vein has been identified on the 3,050m level to the south of the 3W shaft but was not previously recognised as a coherent high-grade vein.

Intierra's Minmet research service said the Packer-controlled Musselbrook Energy & Mines Ltd put Co-O into production in 1989 and spent $US22 million on its development, and one of the problems the company encountered was a deadly raid by insurgents on the company's gold recovery room.

The project was taken over by a company called Philsaga which, from 2000, produced between 20-25,000 oz gold per annum before agreeing to sell to Medusa which revamped the operation and from a production resumption using 10@ shaft in early January the ramp up to the end of March was 1,315 oz.