JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The Manica gold project in Mozambique, which has a three-million-ounce Joint Ore Reserves Committee-compliant resource, is firming up historical data and identifying additional ounces.

ASX-listed Auroch Minerals, which in January raised $3-million to augment its cash of $5.3-million, is carrying out exploration drilling within the Odzi-Mutare-Manica greenstone belt in central Mozambique, on the corridor that links Beira to Zimbabwe.

“Capital is limited so you have to be very careful. We keep our overheads exceptionally tight and invest as much money in the ground, on drilling, as we can,” Auroch MD Dean Cunningham told Mining Weekly Online (see also video attached).

The former gold analyst and investment banker reported that interpretation of the latest information was under way, following the completion of an electromagnetic survey across the entire property.

The project, 4 km from the town of Manica, is close to power lines and roads and has access to mining-related migrant labour and semi-skilled labour that serviced neighbouring Zimbabwe and South Africa.

The company has completed 7 400 m of diamond drilling and defined the project into a number of sectors, with the Guy Fawkes sector the current focus.

Information received when the project was acquired from the JSE-listed Pan African Resources showed historical grades of 2 g/t to 7 g/t.

The company is working on a long-term gold price of $1 200/oz and foresees a number of openpittable opportunities in the mining of near-surface gold.

Two contractors are in place to bring down mining and processing costs.

Of the 81 employees, 71 are Mozambicans.

Auroch has spent more than $2.5-million since January, on top of $19-million spent earlier by Pan African, which remains a significant shareholder.

With small the new beautiful in gold mining, Cunningham sees Auroch as being in a good space on a go-forward basis.

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