Orvana is expeditiously advancing the El Valle-Boinás/Carlés gold-copper project, located in the Rio Narcea Gold Belt in Northern Spain. The Company is developing a mine plan and will be conducting a drilling program in order to convert inferred resources to measured/indicated resources in mineralized areas that it plans to mine in the early years. 

Orvana acquired the El Valle-Boinás/Carlés Project in September 2009 through the purchase of Kinbauri Gold Corp. This project is an excellent fit with Orvana’s strategic growth plans. The Company’s considerable experience bringing underground mines into production positions it to develop this project successfully.

The project has a plant and a mill with 750,000 tonnes per year capacity as well as extensive infrastructure. The El Valle Mill includes a primary crusher, SAG and ball mills, pebble crusher, flotation cells, concentrate thickener and filtration, gravity circuit, CIL, cyanide destruction, carbon regeneration, elution electro-winning, calcining and smelting, reagent preparation and water recovery. Auxiliary facilities include offices, warehouses, maintenance shops, change houses, and a sample preparation and fire assay laboratory. The abandoned El Valle pit will be used as the tailings impoundment.

The El Valle-Boinás/Carlés area produced about 950,000 ounces of gold and nearly 14,000 tonnes of copper during the period 1997-2006, about 90% by open-pit methods. Kinbauri bought the assets in 2007 and during 2007-2008 it completed both surface and underground drilling at Carlés and El Valle, successfully increasing resources throughout the district. Ore Reserves Engineering of Denver, Colorado completed a NI 43-101 compliant technical study in November 2008. In April 2009, U.K.-based Scott Wilson Ltd. updated this report and estimated measured and indicated resources of 6.4 million tonnes at 4.7 grams per tonne gold and 0.80% copper (970,000 ounces gold, and 115 million pounds of copper) and inferred resources of 7.3 million tonnes at 5.4 grams per tonne gold and 0.45% copper, and concluded that exploitation of the cited resources could be economically viable.