Mining sector: Increase in gold output lifts Orosur

Orosur Mining (LON:OMI), the South America-focused gold producer and explorer, gains 12.6% to 11.4p as it confirms a 6% hike in gold production to 14,829 oz.

Net Income after tax for its fiscal second quarter was $3.5m, from $1.2m. The company's net cash position increased by $5.4m in the first half of this fiscal year.

Drill results from Kibo Mining's (LON:KIBO) Imweru gold project in Tanzania fail to impress the market despite coming in ahead of expectations with the shares down 5.6% at 4.25p.

The drill programme - which was completed in late November - comprised 21 drill holes for a combined total of 3,265 m of reverse circulation (RC) and diamond drilling (DD).

Gold mineralisation was intersected in 19 of the 21 holes drilled.

Kibo says new mineralised zones were intersected which have not been incorporated in the previous resource estimate and should contribute to an increase in the updated resource estimate.

Mineralisation remains open down dip and along strike.

The company is now awaiting completion of an independent update of the existing resource statement, prior to carrying out a phase 2 drill programme.

Chief executive Louis Coetzee said: "The drill results from Imweru exceed our expectations and confirm not just the continuation of the Imweru mineralised zones between previously drilled locations but new mineralised zones at depth. These results improved our confidence levels in the potential to significantly increase both the quality and quantity of the current resource on the project. 

"We now look forward to producing an updated JORC-compliant resource estimate before proceeding to the next development phase of the project"

Thor Mining (LON:THR) slipped 0.7% to 0.303p after it said upgraded gold assays from the Spring Hill, south of Darwin in Australia, are significant but it is not possible to extrapolate from them and and estimate any potential changes to historical results.

"We are selecting a further set of assays from the 2013 drilling program where values of between 1.0 & 2.0 g/t have been returned, and we will carry out screen fire assays on those," said executive chairman Mick Billing in a statement.

The company said following receipt of the final fire assay results from the 2013 drilling program, 55 samples with fire assays results greater than 2.0g/t were selected for follow up screen fire assay.

"When gold mineralisation includes substantial coarse gold, there can be instances of upgraded values on re-assaying using the considerably more exhaustive screen fire assay process," Billing said.

Of the selection, 18 samples were either downgraded or returned the same value, with the remaining 37 samples returning improved gold values.

A review of historical assays from drilling programs in the early 1990's showed that of approximately 3,500 assays of intersections with gold values greater than 0.5 g/t, only 156 were subject to screen fire assays. Information in respect of any upgrade from original fire assays is not available. 

Rambler Metals and Mining (LON:RMM) slips 1.3% to 28p despite announcing it has delivered about 6,608 wet metric tonnes of copper and gold concentrate from Goodyear's Cove, NL Canada. 

The Company's internal sampling estimates an average grade for the shipment of 28.28 per cent copper, 7.36 grammes per tonne gold and 51 grammes per tonne silver. 

This is the fifth shipment, as part of an off-take agreement with Transamine Trading SA (Transamine'), and brings the total delivered to approximately 32,300 wmt to date. 

Following the shipment, the Company still has over 3,274 wmt of concentrate in storage at its Goodyear's Cove Storage Facility.