The former Granada underground mine had produced more than 50,000 oz. of gold at an average grade of 9.7 g/t gold from two shafts before a fire destroyed the surface buildings. Bulk samples taken from the surface in the 1990s and since then have graded in the 3-5 g/t range. Last activity at Granada was the mining of approximately 2,200 oz. of gold in 2000.
Following its acquisition in 2006, Granada Gold has been looking to revitalize the deposit to the first stage of production – what it calls a high-grade “rolling start”. Drilling has been conducted since 2009 on unexplored areas near the past-producing pit, with the aim of expanding the resource and demonstrating its open pit and underground potential. To date, only about 20% of the property has been explored.
The new resource estimate, which combines both in-pit constrained and underground resources, incorporates results of the 30,000-metre drill program recently completed on the Big Claim at Granada since the last estimate was published in January 2021.
Measured and indicated resources are now estimated at 8.22 million tonnes grading 2.05 g/t gold for 543,000 oz. of contained gold, representing a 21% increase in contained ounces over the previous estimate. Inferred resources amount to 3.01 million tonnes grading 4.71 g/t gold for 456,000 oz. of contained gold, for a 71% increase. The gold grades are in line with the company’s target of 2 g/t for open pit and 4 g/t for underground resources.
Frank Basa, Granada Gold’s president and CEO, commented: “Granada has been successful in achieving its goals with last year’s 30,000-metre drill program, which was the first phase of a planned 120,000 metres of drilling. We had planned to do much of the drilling during the first phase in, around and below the existing pit aiming to significantly increase the gold mineral resources in line with our target grades, and also to confirm gold mineralization with step-out drilling to the north of the pit. We did all that.”
According to Basa, the potential of Granada “has not yet been realized,” given that drilling has been conducted on only 2 km of the 5.5 km estimated mineralized east-west zone, and the company still has “plenty” of prospective targets. “Past and recent drilling confirmed the presence of downward-sloping gold veins at depth to the north of the pit but we mostly have not drilled enough there to count that as part of the mineral resource,” he said.
“There is a lot of exploration drilling we could do to the east as well along the mineralized zone which we believe could be productive,” he concluded.
