Highland Gold granted licences for two greenfield mines

Highland Gold Mining announced on Monday that it had received exploration licences for two greenfield sites adjacent to the existing licence areas for the Mnogovershinnoye mine.

The AIM-traded firm said the Kulibinskaya licence area, located to the south west of MNV, covered a territory of 38 square kilometres, while the Zamanchivaya area included 4.2 sq. km to the north east of MNV.

It said the licences were granted to Mnogovershinnoe by Russia's Far East Federal District Subsoil Use Department for a period of seven years.

“Potential mineralisation was previously identified in both of the licence areas, suggesting that they may represent continuations of MNV's geological structure,” Highland Gold’s board said in a statement.

“Zamanchivaya is located directly adjacent to the Pebble ore body, one of MNV's existing open pits.”

The company said it set aside a budget of $1m for preliminary prospecting work at the sites in 2017, including $0.2m for exploratory drilling, which would assist in developing more detailed exploration plans for next year.

Highland Gold said the purpose of the exploration was to potentially add gold resources to MNV's operations.

“In addition to the central MNV licence, the company already holds licences for the Western and North-Western Flanks, and the Lower Horizons of the central licence.

“MNV has been the focus of extensive programmes for near-mine exploration and reserve recalculation in recent years.

!These efforts, which are ongoing, have already resulted in the extension of MNV's life of mine to 2022, as well as the updated mineral resource and ore reserve statement published earlier this month.”