Two Millionth Ounce Poured
MEDIA STATEMENT
18 November 2005
Two Millionth Ounce Poured
OceanaGold announced that it will be pouring the two millionth ounce of gold from its Macraes’ gold mine today. The Macraes’ operation was commissioned in 1990 and is located in the prolific Macraes Goldfield on the South Island of New Zealand. It remains New Zealand’s largest producing gold mine and still contains 3.9 million ounces of gold resource.
In conjunction with the Macraes surface operations, OceanaGold is developing the Frasers Underground on deep extensions of the surface mined Macraes ore body. The full extent of the mineralisation in this goldfield is still undefined and significant potential exists to discover other underground ore bodies along the twenty kilometre strike extent of the known mineralisation.
OceanaGold is also developing the Globe Progress surface mine in New Zealand’s Reefton Goldfield on the South Island. The Company controls the tenements over this prospective region’s 35 kilometre mineralised trend and has defined another 1.4 million ounces of gold resource.
Once the Globe Progress and Frasers mines are commissioned, the Company expects to increase its production by 65% to 300,000 ounces per year.
On the north end of the South Island, OceanaGold has also defined 0.8 million ounces of gold resource at its Sams Creek exploration project.
ENDS