Exeter, a well-positioned Canadian mineral developer with a treasury of some $72.8M and zero debt, is currently focused on its 100% owned Caspiche project in Chile’s prolific Maricunga gold district. Today the company reported recommencement of drilling operations at Caspiche.
The Capsiche project is ideally situated between Kinross Gold’s Refugio mine and the Kinross/Barrick Cerro Casale deposit. This resource, taken as a whole, is one of the biggest discoveries in Chile and XRA has mobilized substantial resources of its own to capitalize on it. Exeter’s landmark pre-feasibility study on the combined Caspiche and Oxide-Sulfide deposit work located at the project is going into final phases, with Schlumberger Water Services handling the hydrological analysis and geotechnical work for the Oxide and Sulfide projects falling to Knight Piésold.
Environmental and community impact studies are set to be handled by Arcadis Chile in the run up to Environmental Impact Assessment permitting on the Oxide project and Arcadis will serve a fundamental role for environmental baseline analysis project-wide.
There are a variety of ways to develop the deposits and a profile of three distinct scenarios has emerged in order to address both short term and long term profitability, for either a partial or maximized development:
• Super pit – would go down to 1k meters, mining both the oxide gold “blanket” and underlying sulfide deposit entirely via open pit methods
• Hybrid open pit/underground – open pitting the upper oxide layer and then block caving the high grade core of the sulfide deposit
• Full underground – essentially this method would use underground mining to capture maximum value by mining out the lower sulfide zones
Sandvik Mining and Construction assisted in pre-feasibility work on the Super/Hybrid options which would utilize in- and ex-pit crushing/conveying of waste rock (IPCC/EPCC), confirming extremely efficient workflows. Among the efficiency highlights are significantly reduced cost from overall waste handling operations, a smaller truck fleet and less need for personnel. Exeter has already approached key international consultants to go over the study inputs, assumptions and preliminary results, giving the Company a strong boost out of this milestone achievement.
Drilling will initially target geotechnical analysis and core material sampling for metallurgical evaluation programs as the Company is intent upon potentially expanding current engineering program parameters. Subsequent drilling will focus on new porphyry targets proximal to Caspiche as the Company found promising hydrothermal alteration on the adjacent Sideral project (currently held under option from Xstrata). Exeter has brought in new geotechnical equipment for this season and will be doing deep penetrating analysis to spearhead the work.
Exeter’s 10.7k hectare water exploration concession from the Chilean government is slated for drilling to kick off in late December this year and a new field camp is being set up to facilitate operations.
A definitive pre-feasibility study, incorporating the IPCC/EPCC studies, is slated for release Mid-January 2012. To stay up on the latest developments at Caspiche, or for more information on Exeter Resource Corp., please visit the Company’s website at: www.ExeterResource.com
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