Underground Mineral Resource Estimate At The Marmato Project

 

TORONTO - Gran Colombia Gold Corp. reported an updated Mineral Resource estimate (“2017 MRE”) for its Marmato Project in Colombia that reflects a change in the focus of the mining style from open pit to underground mining, an increase in cut-off grade for the mineral resource estimate and the addition of new material from the deep mineralization below the existing Mineros Nacionales mine. The 2017 MRE contains a total of 3.9 million ounces of gold and 22.6 million ounces of silver in the Measured and Indicated categories and an additional 4.2 million ounces of gold and 15.0 million ounces of silver in the Inferred category.

Serafino Iacono, Executive Co-Chairman said, “We are pleased with the progress we have been making at our Segovia Operations and now feel comfortable in turning our attention toward evaluating the potential to generate a return on our investment at the Marmato Project. In the current gold market, we feel it is prudent to change our approach, shifting from a large-scale, low grade open pit operation as previously conceived to a smaller-scale, higher grade underground mining operation. In addition, we intend to implement our contract mining model to incorporate production from the ancestral and artisanal miners working within our titles. We have already commenced some high level scoping analysis for future mining operations and over the next six months we will be preparing a preliminary economic assessment targeting higher grade material with the intention of developing an expanded underground mining operation at Marmato with a minimum 12-year mine life and life-of-mine gold production of more than 1.5 million ounces. The deep mineralization at Marmato remains open along strike and at depth and we expect that our 2018 exploration program will include substantial additional drilling to continue expanding our understanding of the total mineral resource potential of the deposit.”