AVOCA

Quarterly Report for the Three Months Ending 30 September 2009

 

Highlights

 

Operations

·         Gold production of 50,584 ounces at a site operating cash cost of A$428 per ounce (not including royalties).

·         Mined production from Trident was 281,801 tonnes at 5.7 g/t gold for 51,326 contained ounces.

·         Underground development totaled 2,660m during the quarter.

·         The Higginsville treatment plant processed 314,463 tonnes at 5.2 g/t gold for 50,584 ounces at a recovery of 97.3%.

·         Underground drilling continues to yield excellent infill grade control drilling results from the Athena Lodes (e.g 5m @ 235 g/t), as well as extending the Apollo (eg. 37m @ 11.1 g/t) and Eos mineralised positions.

 

Exploration

·         Surface exploration confirmed the highly encouraging continuation at depth of the Trident ore system with high grade intersections located 150m below the existing resource base (eg. 2.4m @ 14.1 g/t).

·         Indicated resource drilling of 14 holes at Chalice returned promising results (eg. 20.0m @ 10.7 g/t and 28m @ 7.2 g/t).

·         Drilling 1.2km north-west of Musket has identified a new mineralised position with all 7 RC holes from a shallow program returning good results (eg. 13m @ 4.0 g/t and 7m @ 2.3 g/t)

 

Project Development

·         The Trident paste plant was completed during the quarter on time and approximately A$1.5 million under budget.

 

Corporate

·         Avoca closed its off-market takeover offer for Dioro Exploration NL with a 44.85% interest. Avoca subsequently acquired 3 million options in Dioro and by quarter-end had three of its directors (Messrs Williams, Reynolds and Castro) appointed to the Dioro board.