Antilles steps up drilling campaign for Cuban gold

Antilles Gold has stepped up its drilling campaign in Cuba, with a second rig hitting the ground to accelerate development drilling over the La Demajagua gold-silver project. The company is presently knee-deep in a 25,000-metre drilling program designed to define the rich ore system over more than 2 kilometres of strike. Antilles is planning to up the ante further in May by dropping a third rig into the play.

The company’s rapidly developing La Demajagua project lies around 170km to the south of Havana on the Island of Youth. The project is located on the western side of the island and covers around 900 hectares. It is also 40 km south-west of the port city of Nueva Gerona where there is outstanding access to infrastructure, including paved roads, water, power and communications.

Antilles has formed a joint venture vehicle with the state-owned GeoMinera to develop the La Demajagua gold-silver project, with Antilles set to earn 49 per cent of the joint venture by spending US$13 million on exploration and development across the joint venture ground.

The exploration program is now gathering momentum too as Antilles charges headlong into the program. The jewel in the crown of the project is the dormant Delita gold-silver deposit, which has a history of underground mining that dates back to the 1920s. Miners extracted a wealth of high-grade gold and silver from the operation prior to its closure in 1989. Subsequent work by various Canadian-based explorers has left a legacy of data which Antilles is using to full effect, utilising it to fast-track the re-development of the mine.

Antilles is planning to use the current drilling data to complement the existing 50,000m drill hole database. Renown mining group Cube Consulting have been engaged to undertake a resource estimation in the months ahead.

The company has already flagged an exploration target of between 16 and 20 million tonnes at a grade of 2.3 to 2.7 grams per tonne gold and 17 to 23 g/t of silver over Delita, potentially delivering the joint venture a multi-million-ounce gold-silver resource.

Antilles maiden JORC resource will form the basis for a Bankable Feasibility Study, or “BFS” for the stage one open pit development of the mine. The BFS is expected to confirm the results of the company’s earlier Preliminary Economic Assessment, which targets an 800,000 tonne per year open pit mining and processing operation aiming to produce 60,000 tonnes of high-grade gold-silver sulphide concentrate per annum over an initial six-year mine life. Concentrate production is expected to deliver a total of around 90,500 ounces of gold and 730,000 ounces of silver into Antilles and GeoMinera’s coffers on an annualised basis.

The Stage Two development of the project will proceed towards the end of the open pit mining operation and consist of the development of an underground mining operation targeting the deeper and higher-grade core of the Delita deposit.

GeoMinera and Antilles are currently drilling 200 holes at Delita which will not only provide data for resource estimation but will also provide bulk samples for metallurgical test work and allow a preliminary open pit mine design for the BFS.

The company anticipates that it will begin receiving assays from the ongoing drilling program in the weeks ahead however, with two rigs already on the ground in Cuba and a third in the wings, Antilles is drilling up a storm and looks to be on the pathway to production in this emerging mining destination.

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