Q4 Production at Youga Exceeds 21,000 Ounces

Etruscan Resources Inc. recently reported that its Youga Gold Mine located in Burkina Faso, West Africa poured 7,136 ounces of gold for the month of November finishing its  4th quarter with 21,165 ounces poured. The average forecast monthly gold production over life of mine is 6,700 ounces per month. The operation has been steadily improving and has now reached design throughput with the last two months of production exceeding 7,000 ounces per month.

The Youga Gold Mine currently comprises open pit mining from five pits with the ore being processed though a conventional CIL/gravity plant having a design capacity of one million tonnes per annum. The gravity equipment at Youga consists of a Knelson XD30 concentrator installed in the grinding circuit treating a portion of the cyclone underflow. The concentrates are then upgraded on a shaking table. This processing strategy is extremely common throughout W. Africa where many of the mines in the region utilize Knelson Concentrators to recover up to 50% of their gold quickly and efficiently and without the need for chemical reagents.

Mineable reserves at Youga are 6.6 million tonnes with an average grade of 2.7 grams per tonne containing 580,000 ounces of gold. The project benefits from a year-round water supply from a nearby major river system (the White Volta) and access to grid power supplied via the northern grid of the Volta River Authority in Ghana is forecast for the first quarter 2009. The current diesel powered generator system will then act as a back-up power plant to ensure constant power to the site.