Wassa Mine demonstrates robust high grade gold

Sam Coetzer, President and CEO of Golden Star, says the drilling results received this quarter continue to demonstrate the robust nature of the high grade target at its Wassa Mine.

The combination of the infill drilling proving up the wider zones of high grade beneath the Wassa open pit and the success of the step out drilling, which remains open to the south, has shown that this deposit has significant untapped potential.

These drilling results will be used to update the Preliminary Economic Assessment, which the company has already initiated and will release to the market this quarter.

Golden Star’s Wassa gold mine, located in the Western Region has a carbon-in-leach processing plant with a rated capacity of 2.7 million tonnes per annum. Mining is done at one large operating pit, the Wassa Main pit, which is within 500m of the plant.

Drilling below the Wassa Main pit has been ongoing since late 2011. This drilling has been successful in increasing the life of Wassa Mine from two years to approximately 11 years.

The current drilling programme at Wassa is focused on two goals -- approximately 20,000 m of infill drilling of the current resource to further define grades and continuity, and step out drilling on 200-metre drill fences to the south to determine the extension of the high grade mineralisation below the current Wassa Main pit design.

As at the end of the second quarter 2014, the first phase of infill drilling over 15,400 m has been completed.

The step out drill fences have been successful in proving down plunge continuity of the high grade mineralised shoot.

The high grade gold mineralisation has been delineated over a total strike extent of approximately 1,000 metres extending from beneath the current pits to the last step out drill fence to the south where it remains open down plunge.

The Company is currently focusing on completion of the Wassa underground Preliminary Economic Assessment, and on the positive outcome of this study will look at resuming the step out drilling programme. Step out holes were drilled and assay results received this quarter.

The infill drilling results along the strike of the underground target beneath the current Wassa Main pit have demonstrated the continuity of this zone along the plunge of the high grade mineralisation.

The higher drilling density in the area beneath the current pits has given the company confidence in continuity of the wider higher grade zones, which in turn adds confidence to the step out drill holes drilled down plunge 400 metres to the south.

The infill drilling programs beneath the current open pit at Wassa continued to return significant widths and grades along the entire strike of the underground target.