OceanaGold Provides Annual Resource and Reserve Statement Update
MEDIA RELEASE
28 March 2019
OCEANAGOLD PROVIDES ANNUAL RESOURCE AND RESERVE STATEMENT UPDATE
(MELBOURNE) OceanaGold Corporation (TSX: OGC) (ASX: OGC) (the “Company”) is pleased to provide its updated annual Resource and Reserve (“R&R”) statement for the year ended December 31, 2018.
Highlights
- Total Proven and Probable Mineral Reserves of 5.56 Moz1 of gold, 3.38 Moz of silver and 0.14 Mt of copper, with growth in gold reserves offsetting approximately 50% of 2018 mining depletion
- Total Measured and Indicated Mineral Resources of 8.59 Moz of gold, 5.52 Moz of silver and 0.16 Mt of copper, with gold resource growth nearly offsetting 2018 mining depletion
- Total Inferred Mineral Resources of 3.6 Moz of gold, 3.5 Moz of silver and 0.03 Mt of copper. A 42% year on year increase, net of mining depletion.
- Martha Underground Indicated Mineral Resource increased to 0.33 Moz of gold and 1.30 Moz of silver while Inferred Mineral Resources increased to 0.67 Moz of gold and 2.47 Moz of silver.
- Initial WKP resource including 0.23 Moz of gold in Indicated Mineral Resources and 0.4 Moz of gold in Inferred Mineral Resources.
Mick Wilkes, President and CEO, “OceanaGold has a significant mineral endowment that has grown over the past several years. Exploration is a key component of our value creating strategy and we have increased our exploration budget each year since 2015. Operating and exploring in prolific gold districts in the United States, New Zealand and the Philippines has afforded us the opportunity to make prudent investments in extensive drill programs that have translated into growth of our resource base”
“For the past few years, we have described our confidence in significantly increasing the resource base and mine life of our New Zealand operations. Over the course of the past 12 months, we have done just that with significant increases at the Martha Underground and initial resource at our newest discovery at WKP. We have also achieved exploration success at Macraes where we are currently investigating a mine life increase through resource conversion and recent discovery of higher grade ore at depth at Golden Point.”
“At Haile, we continue to achieve positive exploration results by identifying new pockets of mineralisation within the existing operating footprint and at depth. We do look forward to further extensive drilling at deeper
1 Moz = million troy ounces.
targets once the Horseshoe underground is built. At Didipio, drilling towards the base of Panel 2 of the underground has yielded increases to the resource at the operation.”
Table 1: Updated Mineral Reserves (as at December 31, 2018)
| PROJECT PROVEN AREA Cut-Off Mt Au g/t Ag g/t Cu % MACRAES Open Pit 0.4 g/t Au 10.8 1.11 . . MACRAES Underground 1.2 g/t Au 0.5 2.74 . . BLACKWATER WAIHI Open Pit 0.5 g/t Au 0.2 3.05 30.46 . WAIHI Underground 2.9 g/t Au 0.3 5.63 11.25 . NEW ZEALAND 11.8 1.33 DIDIPIO Open Pit 0.4 g/t AuEq 19.4 0.39 2.08 0.33 DIDIPIO Underground 1.3 g/t AuEq 9.9 2.09 2.19 0.50 PHILIPPINES 29.2 0.97 HAILE Open Pit 0.45 g/t Au 10.2 1.86 . . Haile Underground 1.5 g/t Au . . . . USA 10.2 1.86 | |
| TOTAL | 51.3 1.23 |
PROBABLE PROVEN & PROBABLE
| Mt Au g/t Ag g/t Cu % | Mt | Au g/t Ag g/t Cu % Au Moz Ag Moz Cu Mt | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22.2 | 0.94 | . | . | 33.0 | 0.99 | . | . | 1.05 | . | . |
| 0.97 | 2.06 | . | . | 1.47 | 2.29 | . | . | 0.11 | . | . |
| 0.7 | 2.91 | 29.11 | . | 0.8 | 2.94 | 29.37 | . | 0.08 | 0.77 | . |
| 0.3 | 4.88 | 9.76 | . | 0.6 | 5.31 | 10.61 | . | 0.10 | 0.20 | . |
| 24.1 | 1.08 | 35.9 | 1.16 | 1.34 | 0.97 | . | ||||
| . | . | . | . | 19.4 | 0.39 | 2.08 | 0.33 | 0.24 | 1.29 | 0.06 |
| 7.3 | 1.23 | 1.79 | 0.40 | 17.2 | 1.73 | 2.02 | 0.46 | 0.95 | 1.12 | 0.08 |
| 7.3 | 1.23 | 36.6 | 1.02 | 1.20 | 2.41 | 0.14 | ||||
| 41.1 | 1.50 | . | . | 51.3 | 1.57 | . | . | 2.59 | . | . |
| 3.1 | 4.38 | . | . | 3.1 | 4.38 | . | . | 0.44 | . | . |
| 44.2 | 1.70 | 54.4 | 1.73 | 3.03 | . | . | ||||
| 75.5 | 1.46 | 127 | 1.36 | 5.56 | 3.38 | 0.14 |
Notes:
1. Mineral Reserves are reported within current mine designs based upon US$1,300/oz gold, US$3.25/lb copper and US$17/oz silver.
2. Reported estimates of contained metal do not make allowances for processing losses.
Figure 1: Changes to Proven & Probable Mineral Reserves
The Company’s Proven and Probable (“P&P”) Reserves stand at 5.56 Moz of gold, 3.38 Moz of silver and 0.14 Mt of copper. Year-on-year, growth in reserves has offset 36% of 2018 mining depletion.
Table 2: Updated Mineral Resources – Measured and Indicated (as at December 31, 2018)
Figure 2: Changes to Measured & Indicated Mineral Resources
All reported Measured and Indicated Resources include Mineral Reserves.
On a consolidated basis, the Company has offset 2018 mining depletion with resource growth, mainly at Waihi, resulting in Measured and Indicated (“M&I”) Resources totalling 8.59 Moz of gold, 5.52 Moz of silver and 0.16 Mt of copper, a small year-on-year decrease of 0.09 Moz Au, due to 2018 mining depletion largely being offset by the addition of the new Martha and WKP underground resources.
Table 3: Updated Mineral Resources – Inferred Resource Statement (as at December 31, 2018)
Notes for Measured, Indicated and Inferred Resources:
1. Mineral Resources include Mineral Reserves.
2. Macraes open pit resources constrained by a NZ$2,083/oz gold price pit shell.
3. Haile open pit resources constrained by a US$1,500/oz gold price pit shell.
4. Waihi open pit resources are reported within a pit design to the 890mRL.
5. WKP and MUG resources were publicly released on March 7, 2019 and February 22, 2019 respectively, but are based on drilling and geological information compiled in 2018.
6. 50% of Waihi Measured & Indicated Resources are from Martha Underground reported at a 2.15 g/t Au cut-off, 35% from WKP reported at a 3.0 g/t Au cut-off and 15% from Correnso reported at a 2.9 g/t Au cut-off
7. 62% of Waihi Inferred Resources are from Martha Underground which are reported at a 2.15 g/t Au-cut-off & 39% from WKP reported at a 3.0 g/t Au cut-off
8. For Didipio, all in-situ open pit resources have been depleted. Only stockpiles remain. Underground resources reported between the 2,460mRL and 1,980mRL with gold equivalence (AuEq) cut-off based on US$1,500/oz gold and US$3.50/lb copper.
Figure 3: Changes to Inferred Resources
Consolidated Inferred Resources increased to 3.6 Moz of gold, 3.5 Moz of silver and 0.03 Mt of copper. This represents a 42% year on year increase in Inferred gold resources mainly due to growth at Waihi.
Table 4 – Updated Mineral Resources – Minority Interest in Assets (as at December 31, 2018)
| PROJECT MEASURED INDICATED INFERRED AREA Mt Au g/t Moz Mt Au g/t Moz Mt Au g/t Au Moz | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| SAMS CREEK | . . . | 2.0 1.77 0.11 | 2.0 1.3 0.1 |
| TOTAL | . . . | 2.0 1.77 0.11 | 2.0 1.3 0.1 |
Notes:
1. OceanaGold has a 20% interest in the Sam’s Creek Project. Reported at a 0.7 g/t Au cut-off and factored by the percentage ownership.
New Zealand
Waihi
Figure 4: Changes to Waihi Proven & Probable Mineral Reserves
Combined open pit and underground P&P Reserve at Waihi as at 31st December 2018 stood at 0.18 Moz after mine depletion. The Company continues to advance the Martha Underground Project having received the resource consents (permits) to proceed to operations. The Company is in the process of implementing the project through mine designs, construction and additional drilling which will add considerably to the reserves in 2019.
Figure 5: Changes to Waihi Measured & Indicated Mineral Resources Over the past 18 months, the Company has drilled mainly from two underground drill drives to prove up Mineral Resources beneath the Martha Open Pit. Total M&I Resources at Waihi have increased by 233% to 0.84 Moz after mine depletion.
The increase mainly relates to the updated Martha Underground and initial WKP Indicated Resources, which now stand at 0.33 Moz and 0.23 Moz respectively. The Martha Underground and WKP resources were publicly released on March 7, 2019 and February 22, 2019 respectively but are based on drilling and geological information compiled in 2018.
Figure 6: Changes to Waihi Inferred Resources
The Inferred Resource at Waihi has grown 575% year-on-year to 1.1 Moz with the increase related to the addition of Inferred Resources at the Martha Underground and WKP.
The Company has an exploration target of five to eight million tonnes with grades ranging from four to six grams per tonne for the Martha Underground Project. This exploration target is based on the assessment of surface and underground drilling data collected by the Company in addition to the significant amount of historical and archived geological and mining data from over a century of mining activity at Waihi. The exploration target is conceptual in nature and exploration completed on this target to date is not sufficient to define an additional Mineral Resource above what has been reported. The Martha Underground Project is a significant component of the targeted mine life extension for the operation.
Over the course of the next 18 months, the Company will continue to drill extensively beneath the Martha Open Pit and at WKP to test the full extent of these mineralised systems.
Macraes
Figure 7: Changes to Macraes Proven & Probable Mineral Reserves
The P&P Reserves for Macraes comprise 1.1 Moz of gold in the open pit and 0.11 Moz of gold in the underground for a combined Mineral Reserve of 1.2 Moz. Year on year reserve growth offset 2018 mine depletion by 65%.
Figure 8: Changes to Macraes Measured & Indicated Mineral Resources
As at 31st December 2018, the Macraes M&I Resources stood at 3.3 Moz of gold, including 0.68 Moz in Frasers Underground. The year on year decrease in M&I Resources is due primarily to mine depletion at both Coronation North and Frasers Underground. The Company has also removed 0.13 Moz from Frasers open pit related to geotechnical constraints. Some of this resource however has been transferred to the Frasers Underground resource inventory.
Figure 9: Changes to Macraes Inferred Resources
Macraes Inferred Resources stood at 0.9 Moz of gold, a 6% increase year on year, reflecting updated resource estimates and the inclusion of the Fraser-slip resource. This is after conversion of some Inferred Resources to M&I Resources.
Reefton
In December 2016, the Company announced the closure of the Reefton Mine and as a result, associated resources were removed from the Company’s inventory.
Resources for the nearby Blackwater Project remain on the Company’s inventory.
United States
Haile
Figure 10: Changes to Haile Proven & Probable Mineral Reserves
P&P Reserves total 3.0 Moz of gold including 0.44 Moz of gold in the Horseshoe Underground. Total Mineral Reserves have reduced by 5% due a combination of open pit mine depletion, revised resource estimation and reserve conversion. Resource conversion amounted to approximately 0.15 Moz due to infill and extensional drilling. The mine life based on reserves at Haile remains at 2032.
Figure 11: Changes to Haile Measured & Indicated Mineral Resources
As at 31st December 2018, total Haile M&I Resources stood at 3.14 Moz of gold. The Horseshoe Underground remains unchanged with an M&I Resource of 0.49 Moz of gold.
Year on year the open pit M&I Mineral Resources have reduced by approximately 5% as a result of mine depletion. A M&I Resource increase of 0.15 Moz due to drilling in 2018 was offset due to Historical drilling database corrections and a revised resource estimation.
Figure 12: Changes to Haile Inferred Resources
Inferred Resources have increased 12% to 0.7 Moz of gold from drilling in 2018. This includes an Inferred Resource of 0.2 Moz from Horseshoe Underground which is unchanged.
Philippines
Didipio
Figure 13: Changes to Didipio Proven & Probable Mineral Reserves
Didipio P&P Reserves stood at 1.20 Moz of gold, 2.41 Moz of silver and 0.14 Mt of copper, a 5% decrease year on year due to mine depletion partially offset by reserve growth from drilling. The reported open pit reserve is stockpiled ore.
Figure 14: Changes to Didipio Measured & Indicated Mineral Resources
As at 31 December 2018, Didipio, M&I Resources stood at 1.3 Moz of gold, 2.7 Moz of silver and 0.16 Mt of copper, a 7% year on year decrease due to mine depletion despite a small increase in resources towards the base of Panel 2 underground from drilling.
Figure 15: Changes to Didipio Inferred Resources
Inferred Resources stood at 0.3 Moz of gold, 0.5 Moz of silver and 0.03 Mt of copper a 10% increase year on year from drilling in 2018.
Other
OceanaGold’s interest in the Sam’s Creek project in New Zealand remains unchanged at 20%.
As part of the requirements under the listing rules of the Australian Stock Exchange, the Company has filed a separate document containing the material summaries and JORC Table 1 information related to the resource and reserves. These can be found at http://www.oceanagold.com/investor-centre/filings/
- ENDS -
For further information please contact:
Investor Relations Media Relations
Sam Pazuki Melissa Bowerman Tel: +1 416 915 3123 Tel: +61 459 900 099
[email protected] [email protected]
www.oceanagold.com | Twitter: @OceanaGold