Endomines to start production at Pampalo open pit and reports encouraging drilling results from Friday mine

Endomines AB, stock exchange release 31 May 2022 at 13:00 CEST

Endomines is pleased to provide an operational update at its Finnish and US operations.

Pampalo Finland

Recently the gold price development has been very positive. Endomines has investigated possibilities to develop other parts and known gold deposits within the Karelian Gold Line area to increase gold production levels at the Pampalo mill. As an initial step Endomines will open the East open pit for production. The pit is planned to be in production by September 2022 and it is estimated that the East pit will increase gold production volumes at Pampalo by 10-20 %. The pit contains approximately 150 000 t of mineral resources with an average gold grade of 1.2 g/t. It is estimated that the pit will remain in operation for approximately two years.

” We are currently updating our long-term strategy. Developing operations at the Karelian Gold line is a significant part of our future strategy. Current gold price is making it feasible to process gold resources with lower gold grade than before and we have excess capacity at the Pampalo processing plant. Opening East open pit is the first step to bring additional materials to Pampalo production and I am expecting this development to continue also in the future. Karelian Gold line has significant gold production potential. It is likely that we will also seek additional financing to speed up the development activities,” says CEO Kari Vyhtinen.

Friday Idaho, USA

After stopping production at the Friday mine in early 2022, Endomines has carried out an underground diamond drilling campaign to test the extension and continuity of the ore lenses below the current mining level at S4500. Drilling results have been very encouraging as out of 8 holes for a total of 342 m drilled in the campaign, 5 drill holes intersected high-grade (over 8g/t) gold mineralisation extending up to 60m vertically below the current mining level. More drilling will have to be done to better define the continuity and shape of the gold mineralised structures for future mine planning purposes.  

Figure 1: Long section of the Friday mine, Idaho, USA

Table 1 - Diamond core drilling results 2022 from Friday mine, Idaho, USA

Note: A lower cut-off of 3.4 g/tonne Au has been used for all intervals.

” Friday results are very promising and further confirm the gold mineralisation in the area. We have evaluated the overall results and concluded that additional drilling is still required to restart gold production at the Friday mine. Friday ramp-up had several challenges in 2021 and we need to have more detailed mining plans in place to restart production. As a company with limited financial resources, we will prioritise developing East open pit at Pampalo ahead of Friday and therefore drilling at Friday will only be considered in late 2022. We will also investigate partnership options for Friday mine and the Orogrande processing plant operations,” says CEO Kari Vyhtinen.

Drilling technical

All underground drilling has been carried out by American Drilling, using a Hagby 1000/Sandvik DE130 with NQ tubes, resulting in core of 47.6mm in diameter. Drill hole locations, start azimuths and inclinations have been surveyed by using mine survey equipment. Holes were generally less than 100m and no downhole surveying was conducted.  Recovery was in excess of 90%.  All holes were pressure-grouted for abandonment.

Assay and QA/QC procedures

The drill cores have been logged and sampled by Endomines own personnel and contract geologists. The preparation (crushing, pulverizing and splitting) of the underground drillings core samples was carried out at Endomines laboratory at the Oro Grande Production Facility in Elk City, Idaho.  Firms contracted for analysis include American Analytical Services (Osburn, Idaho), Skyline Laboratories (Tucson, Arizona) and Bureau Veritas (Vancouver, Canada). Fire assaying was used for gold analysis.

Normal QA/QC (Quality Assurance/Quality Control) procedures have been adhered to on all the samples, with multiple standards (from CDN Resource Labs, Canada) and duplicates routinely submitted as part of the sampling program. The quality of sample preparation, security integrity and chemical assays was equal to, or exceeded, current industrial standards and the requirements of the JORC-code.

Competent Person

This statement has been controlled by Eurogeologist Jani Rautio MSc (Geol) acting as a Qualified Person in compliance with the Fennoscandian Association for Metals and Mining Professionals, FAMMP, –standards. Jani Rautio is a full-time employee of Endomines.

For further information, please contact:

Kari Vyhtinen, CEO, kari.vyhtinen@endomines.com, +358 40 585 0050

This information is information that Endomines AB is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation. This information was submitted for publication through the contact person set out above at 13:00 CEST on 31 May 2022.

About Endomines
 

Endomines is a mining and exploration company with its primary focus on Au. The Company operates a Gold mine in Pampalo, has exploration activities along the Karelian Au Line in Eastern Finland and develops mining operations in Idaho, USA. Endomines aims to improve its long-term growth prospects by increasing its exploration activities and through acquisitions. Endomines aims to acquire deposits that are situated in stable jurisdictions and can be brought to production rapidly with limited investments.

The shares trade on Nasdaq Stockholm (ENDO) and Nasdaq Helsinki (ENDOM).

Tags: