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Fruta del Norte, Ecuador

Located in southeastern Ecuador, Fruta del Norte is one of the most exciting gold discoveries of the past 15 years.

 
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The Fruta del Norte (FDN) project is located within a 95,000 hectare land package in southeastern Ecuador, in the province of Zamora-Chinchipe. Kinross acquired 100% of the project on September 30, 2008, through the acquisition of Aurelian Resources Inc.

The Condor project is about 80 kilometres northeast of Loja, one of the largest cities in southern Ecuador. Due to its proximity to the equator and elevation of approximately 1,400 metres, the climate around FDN is tropical rain forest, with location temperature relatively constant between 21 to 24 degrees Celsius year round.

FDN is a high grade, intermediate sulphidation epithermal gold-silver system, hosted in andesitic volcanics. The FDN discovery drill hole was reported on April 5, 2006. A National Instrument 43-101 compliant initial inferred mineral resource for FDN was released in October 2007. It found 58.9 million tonnes grading 7.23 g/t gold and 11.8 g/t silver for 13.7 million ounces of contained gold, and 22.4 million ounces of contained silver.

On January 29, 2009, a new Mining Law was published in the Ecuadorian government's official registry and has now taken effect.

Kinross received approval from the Ecuadorian government on November 10, 2009 to re-commence exploration at FDN and is continuing with an 18,000 metre drilling campaign in 2010 with the expectation of further upgrading resources.

Mineral Reserve and Resource Summary

As at December 31, 2009

Gold

Tonnes
(X 1,000)

Grade
(g/t)

Ounces
(X 1,000)

Measured & Indicated Resources 15,932 11.20 5,737
Inferred Resources 24,306 7.85 6,135

 

Silver

Tonnes

(X 1,000)

Grade

(g/t)

Ounces

(X 1,000)
Measured & Indicated Resources 15,932 14.3
7,304
Inferred Resources 24,306 10.1
7,908