Distribution of company announcements to the professional platforms, finance portals and syndication of important corporate news to a wide variety of news aggregators and financial news systems.
Crew Gold Corporation (Other OTC: CRUGF.PK) Corporate news announcement processed and transmitted by Hugin ASA. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------
Press Release - 6th June 2008
LONDON, United Kingdom: Crew Gold Corporation ("Crew" or "the Company") (TSX: CRU) (OSE: CRU) (Frankfurt: KNC) (OTC-BB-Other; CRUGF.PK) today announced:-
Lefa Measured and Indicated Resources Passes 5 Million Ounces
Crew is pleased to announce a further increase in total resources at its 100% owned LEFA Mine in Guinea, West Africa. This release incorporates updates for the previously reported resources within the LEFA area and also includes results from the regional drilling programs undertaken during 2007 and early 2008.
Total resources have increased by 0.47 million ounces (7%) from 5.95 million ounces announced in March 2007 to 6.42 million ounces and take into account mining depletion of 175,849 ounces (3,383,207t @ 1.62g/t). The new mineral resources are based on drilling from 2007 and early 2008.
Details of the new (and previous) resources calculated on the LEFA Concession are tabled below and are calculated as at 31st March 2008. All resources have been depleted to the 31st March 2008 surfaces.
For full Resources Table, please see attached file.
The Measured and Indicated resource total has increased by 0.28 million ounces (net of production of 0.18 million ounces) to 5.1 million ounces. Inferred resource have increased by 0.2 million ounces to 1.3 million.
Both the Firifirini and Toume Toume deposits remain open along strike and, as previously announced, are part of a new style of mineralization that has previously not been recognized within the Concession and offer further upside on grade. The mineralization is hosted in a typical retrograde skarn context developed by a dioritic intrusion forming contact metamorphism with calcareous sediments. Semi-massive accumulations of magnetite together with lesser pyrite are developed on the contacts with other skarn minerals such as epidote, grossular garnet and diopside. These areas form localised high concentrations of gold with lower disseminated grades hosted by the altered carbonate-sandstones, marbles or felsic intrusives.
Of further significance are the Inferred Resources of Diguli Bougoufe, Diguli North, Hansaghere and Banora West which are all located on the corridor to the current Banora resource and highlight this area as possibly becoming another mining centre within the concession area.
Seven kilometres to the East of the process plant there is also the trend of Dar Salaam, Sikasso and Solabe and the final area of Kobedara a further 12kms east. These all combine to highlight the ongoing potential of the concession and exploration permits.
The old heap leach pads are also returning positive results where 4.95 million tonnes have so far been drilled returning above 100,000 ounces. A further approximate 7 million tonnes is still to be drilled, providing further potential from the old dumps. Drilling to date has been completed on the recently stacked areas of the dump where lower grade material was placed. The original areas where higher grade Lero and Karta material was placed for leaching are still to be drilled. Historical records indicated pre-leached grades above 5g/t.
Jan Vestrum, President and CEO of Crew commented: "This increase in the resource base at LEFA to +5 million ounces in the Measured plus Indicated categories firmly places LEFA in the ranks of world-class gold deposits and the Company is confident that continuing exploration will provide further increases to the our resource and reserve inventory.
In just over two years the Company has grown the reserve base from 2.3 million ounces to 3.87 million ounces mainly from near mine exploration. Measured and Indicated resources have increased from 3.8 million ounces to 5.1 million ounces. Importantly, we are now starting to see the benefits from the regional exploration programme. The Company now has a reserve mine life in excess of 10 year and is confident that continuing exploration will provide further increases to the our resource and reserve inventory.
For further information on the resource data please refer to our website www.crewgold.com.
Quality Assurance and Control and Qualified Person All drilling is conducted using industry accepted equipment and procedures for drilling and sampling. All drill intercepts reported in this press release relate to either RC percussion (dry samples, 1m intervals, >75% sample recovery) or NQ/HQ diamond drill core (half core samples, maximum 1m intervals, >95% sample recovery) for Resource definition drilling, all first pass regional exploration drilling is conducted using AC drilling, with follow up using RC. Historically, sampling and assaying of wet RC samples has occurred and this data is flagged in the resource database. A program of confirmatory diamond drilling is ongoing to verify the reliability of this data.
All assay results reported have been determined by 50 gram fire assay, aqua regia digest and atomic absorption spectrometer readings to a detection limit of 0.01 g/t gold by independent assay contractors SGS Siguiri. A check assay program with internationally recognized and certified umpire assay laboratories Genalysis (Perth, Australia) and ALS Chemex (Vancouver, Canada) is also conducted to confirm reliability of assay data. The data is verified on an ongoing basis by Crew's Qualified Person and independent resource consultants Helman and Schofield of Australia.
Data, of a scientific or technical nature, regarding mineral reserves and mineral resources of Crew Gold Corporation and its subsidiaries included in this document has been verified by Mr. Andrew Pardey, General Manager Exploration, Africa and Chief Geologist. Mr. Pardey is a "qualified person" within the meaning of Canadian National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. Mr. Pardey is not "independent" of Crew Gold Corporation within the meaning of NI 43-101 as he holds securities of the company. All exploration work of the company is conducted under the supervision of Mr. Pardey.
The mineral resources referred to in this press release are not mineral reserves and have not demonstrated economic viability.
Jan A Vestrum President & CEO
Safe Harbour Statement This news release contains forward-looking statements which reflect the expectations of management and the board of directors, and are made pursuant to applicable and relevant national legislation (including the Safe-Harbour provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995) in countries where Crew Gold Corporation is conducting business and/or investor relations. Forward looking statements typically contain words such as "believes", "anticipates", "continue", "could", "expects", "indicates", "plans", "will", "may", "projects", "would" or similar expressions suggesting future outcomes or events, although not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words. Such forward-looking statements reflect the current beliefs of management and the board of directors based on information currently available to them. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties, and Crew cautions readers not to place undue reliance on these statements as a number of important factors could cause Crew's actual results to differ materially from the beliefs and expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements, include, but are not limited to, the factors discussed under the heading "Risks and Uncertainties" in Crew's Annual Information Form dated April 2, 2007, as filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon what management and the board of directors believes to be current and reasonable assumptions, Crew cannot assure readers that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained herein are made as of the date of this news release and are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. Crew undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise these forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.
