Modern Mining August 2019

MINING News

Improved performance by Yanfolila gold mine

The objective of the ongoing shallow percussion drilling exercise is to test a number of geophysical and geochemical anomalies associated with the Karibib Fault Zone in the Twin Hills area. A recently initi- ated and ongoing diamond drill programme is designed to test the Twin Hills Central bedrock anomaly and to provide further structural and lithological data down to a depth of 200 m. “The latest bedrock results confirm signif- icant gold mineralisation at Twin Hills West, in addition to the previously discovered Twin Hills Central and Twin Hills East min- eralisation,” commented Dave Underwood, Osino’s VP Exploration. “We are encour- aged and excited by the growing scale and increasing geological confidence in the Twin Hills gold project. The current diamond drill programme will give us a much better geo- logical and structural understanding of the central part of the system by delivering high quality, orientated core down to 200 m.”  Hummingbird had previously planned to announce more detailed LoM guidance and updated reserves at this point; however, due to a number of factors including the increased potential of underground mining, an improved understanding of high-grade structures within the company’s deposits and the higher gold price environment, it is conducting further studies to evaluate these opportunities. Hummingbird’s safety record continued to improve with the company having passed 500 000 LTI-free hours in the quarter.  processed have both increased resulting in almost 200 000 tonnes of ore on the ROM at the current time. “In the last few weeks, post quarter end, we have seen the second ball mill being commissioned. The mill is currently ramping up and has already experienced periods operating at design throughput. This will materially increase our ability to process more ore against the original design parameters as we move down the pits into predominantly fresh and harder material. This project marks another devel- opment that Hummingbird has achieved ahead of time and under budget.” Hummingbird expects to produce in the region of 130 000 oz in 2020. The company believes this will form a long-term average production level based on the impact of the second ball mill. This is a significant increase from the 107 000 oz average pro- duction estimated in the 2016 DFS.

New zone of mineralisation at Twin Hills West target Osino Resources Corp, listed on the TSX-V, has confirmed a new zone of bedrock gold mineralisation over a strike length of 1 km at the Twin Hills West target at its Twin Hills gold project in Namibia. The Yanfolila gold mine in Mali of AIM- listed Hummingbird Resources produced 27 466 oz of gold in the quarter ended 30 June 2019 (Q2‑2019), a 15 % increase on the previous quarter (Q1‑2019), at an AISC of US$998/oz, which was a 23 % decrease on Q1-2019. The average grade was 2,86 g/t compared to 2,4 g/t in Q1-2019. Dan Betts, CEO of Hummingbird, com- mented: “The company is pleased to report a steadily improving operational A recent view of the Yanfolila plant with mill installation in progress (photo: Hummingbird).

performance in Q2. The issues previously communicated which adversely affected production in Q1 have largely been addressed and this has translated into an improved production profile; April saw 7 582 oz produced with May and June returning to circa 10 000 oz/month mark. Additionally, this has also resulted in all other operational KPIs improving during the quarter. Costs have been reducing, grade increasing, and volumes mined and

Twin Hills West targets during April/May 2019, with assay results recently received. The Twin Hills West calcrete anomaly was defined by calcrete sampling and ground magnetic anomalies. The anomalous calcrete gold anomaly was recently followed up with a shallow per- cussion drill programme which confirmed a coincident bedrock gold anomaly of 1 km in strike length, with values up to 2,68 g/t Au and open to the south and west. The percussion holes were drilled verti- cally through the calcrete cover to sample the top of the bedrock beneath. The aver- age depth of the calcrete layer in this area is 20 m. The current bedrock sampling pro- gramme follows the success of the first round of shallow percussion drilling at Twin Hills Central, where a bedrock anomaly with values up to 2,3 g/t was discovered.

The Twin Hills project has grown from an initial small soil anomaly to a total of 11 km in strike length, most of which is covered by calcrete. The project now comprises a number of surface gold anomalies which lie along the regional-scale Karibib Fault. The first anomalies were discovered by Osino in 2017. The project has now been divided into three sectors, namely Twin Hills East, Central and West. Osino has secured a total length of 70 km of the Karibib Fault Zone under exclusive exploration licence and is system- atically exploring along the entire trend. Approximately 4 660 m of shallow per- cussion drilling was completed over the

14  MODERN MINING  August 2019