News
Feasibility Study Underway at Mareesburg
November 15, 2004Mr. Ian Rozier, President of Elgin Resources Inc. (the "Company"), is pleased to report that feasibility study work has commenced on its Mareesburg Platinum Group Metals ("PGM") project in South Africa.
Mareesburg is located in the southern part of the eastern Bushveld Complex in South Africa, adjacent to Angloplats' De Brochen project and 8 km north of Aquarius' Everest South project. The area around Mareesburg is rapidly developing into a major mining district with PGM and chrome mines currently in production, and other projects being developed. Mareesburg is approximately 12 km south of the Spitzkop PGM project where the right to an 87% interest was recently acquired by way of a Joint Venture and a proposed merger of the Company and Jonpol Explorations Ltd. (see News Release dated November 1st, 2004).
The feasibility study is being undertaken by qualified consultants with substantial PGM project experience gained on previous PGM projects in South Africa.
MSA Geoservices will implement the geological work at Mareesburg, including core logging and sampling. This work is being undertaken according to strict standards demanded by the SAMREC/SAMVAL codes which will be JORC compliant. S.R.K Consultants are supervising all QA/QC requirements to meet these standards. These codes meet the regulatory guidelines for stock exchanges in Canada, the U.S.A., the U.K. and Australia.
Gondwana Drilling (a Black economic empowerment company) has initiated the drilling of 33 diamond drill holes (approximately 3300m), required for the completion of the feasibility study. Drill road access and pad construction is nearing completion with 23 sites already prepared. Two drill rigs are to be utilized and drilling is expected to be completed within three months. The drill program will entail multiple deflections to obtain core samples for assaying, geotechnical testing and metallurgical work. Large diameter cores (83.8 mm diameter) will be drilled for more advanced metallurgical tests to determine the design parameters from pilot plant trials on bulk samples.
Fugro Airborne Surveys has completed a detailed aeromagnetic survey of Mareesburg measuring 20.4km2 with 50m line spacing for a total of 480 line kms. In addition to the aeromagnetic data, detailed Digital Terrain Model ("DTM") data was obtained for open pit modeling and mine design purposes.
Eurus Mineral Consultants has been engaged to advise on metallurgical Phase I bench scale work and the Phase II pilot plant work on bulk samples. Phase I work will be undertaken by SGS (Lakefield) in Johannesburg.
S.R.K. Consulting has been engaged to undertake the orebody modeling, geotechnical, hydrogeological, environmental and mine design (open pit and underground) aspects. This work is already well advanced and preliminary reports are being completed.
The Company anticipates that an interim report on Mareesburg will be completed in the first half of 2005 and progress into the full feasibility. The Company anticipates the commencement of feasibility studies at Spitzkop, an advanced PGM project, immediately on closing the transaction in early 2005.
"2005 is shaping up to be a very exciting year for the Company with at least two PGM projects in the Eastern Bushveld in the feasibility stage. A number of other PGM projects are under evaluation and we anticipate adding other accretive projects to our portfolio with continued emphasis on high grade, platinum rich, near surface, mineable deposits such as Spitzkop and Mareesburg," stated Ian Rozier, President and CEO of Elgin.
Elgin is committed to building a substantial portfolio of high grade PGM projects in South Africa and moving them into production.
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For further information contact:
Ian Rozier,
President
604-685-6851
The TSX Venture Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the accuracy or adequacy of the contents of this news release.
