Pac-Rim pins hopes on El Dorado, La Calera

Vancouver-based miner Pacific Rim Mining (Amex: PMU) said it plans to conduct a revised resource calculation at its flagship El Dorado gold project in El Salvador in the Northern Hemisphere fall this year. A current drill program at El Dorado aims to better define the existing resource in order to meet the company's immediate objective of demonstrating an increased resource as a result of the past year's drilling, it said in a statement. At La Calera gold project, 20km from El Dorado, Pac-Rim intends to calculate the first-ever resource estimate during the "coming year," it said. With these new resource estimates in hand, Pac-Rim plans to commission a preliminary economic assessment to define the parameters of either or both of the projects, which may have "tie-in" opportunities due to their close proximity, the company said. At the same time, Pac-Rim plans to conduct scout drilling at El Dorado and La Calera in search of additional gold resources with low-cost potential. This two-pronged approach is part of a new "strategic plan" recently approved by Pac-Rim's directors to increase the El Dorado resource to a size that could "vault" the company into a mid-tier 250,000oz/y gold producer, it said. Pac-Rim expects to fund exploration, the resource calculations and scoping study with cashflow from its Denton-Rawhide gold mine in Nevada, the statement said. El Dorado's Minita target currently hosts an indicated resource of 799,200t with an average grade of 13.7g/t gold and 97.9g/t silver, totaling 352,000oz gold and 2.5Moz silver.