Orezone confirms Bomboré gold deposit amenable to heap leaching

Indicated recoveries are +79% for oxide and +76% for transition resources

LONDON - 

Orezone Gold Corporation (ORE : TSX ) reports positive metallurgical test results on its 100% owned Bomboré gold deposit located in Burkina Faso, West Africa. All test results for the near surface oxide and transition (mixed oxide/sulphide) resources are better than estimates previously used for an in-house scoping study and will therefore enhance the economics of the project.

The company reckons that the  250 km² Bomboré Project is one of the largest gold resources in Burkina Faso.  The Bomboré resources occur at surface to a depth of 100 m in five zones contained within a gold-in-soil anomaly that extends virtually uninterrupted at a level of +0.1 g/t for more than 14 km and represents the largest gold anomaly in Burkina Faso. Resources are open at depth and for the most part still open along strike. Oxides continue to a depth of 40 m and there is good continuity into the fresh rock.

METALLURGICAL HIGHLIGHTS

Bottle-roll Cyanidation on coarse material (passing 25mm)

+82% gold recoveries for the oxide resource;

+72% gold recoveries for the transition resource.

 COLUMN LEACH TEST

+79% gold recoveries for the oxide resource and +76% recoveries for the transition resource after 26 days of leaching (test ongoing);

Agglomeration: 3kg/t cement for the transition and 9kg/t cement for the oxide resource.

The potential to increase all categories of the resources is high, however the Orezone's primary focus is on the expansion of the oxide and transition resources. Significantly less capital investment and time is required to develop a heap leach operation at Bomboré.

Orezone is now to carry out a $2M delineation drill program to both increase and upgrade the oxide and transition resources. This drill program will be completed by mid-2010. All metallurgical testing, updated scoping study results, and a baseline study of the project foot print will be completed by year-end. The company is continuing to study power costs for grinding and processing of the sulphide resource using conventional milling techniques as they may provide additional upside for the development of the project beyond a heap leap leach operation.

The Bomboré gold deposit hosts 0.93 million ounces of Indicated resources and 1.78 million ounces of Inferred resources at an average gold grade of approximately 0.5 g/t in the near surface oxide zone and 1.0 g/t in the underlying primary sulphide resource. Approximately half of the inferred resource is oxide and transition material amenable to heap leach processing.

The Bomboré property has the potential to host a large, open pit gold project with very good infrastructure in place compared to many projects in West Africa as it is located just 80km east of the capital city of Ouagadougou and adjacent to a major national highway, near a large water reservoir, and accessible to an international power grid expected to be constructed in the near future.

Dr. Pascal Marquis, Vice President of Exploration for Orezone, supervised the metallurgical sampling program. Alex Mitchell, Principal Metallurgist with GBM Minerals Engineering Consultants Limited, designed and supervised the test work program. The test work was performed by the AMMTEC laboratory in Perth, Australia.

The samples sent to AMMTEC were selected to be representative of the various grades and rock types for 85% of the Bomboré gold resources. Tests included head analyses, coarse bottle leach and preliminary heap leach (including percolation and agglomeration tests), column leach, extraction on milled samples (including true SG determination, AMD testing, grind establishment, gravity separation, flotation, and cyanidation of whole ore, gravity tailings and flotation concentrate). Samples included six HQ half core 200kg composites of oxide (2), transition (2) and fresh zones (2); two 300 kg PQ whole core composites of transition and fresh zones only; and one 60 kg PQ whole core composite oxide sample.

Orezone is a gold exploration and development company with more than 15 years experience in West Africa, one of the world's fastest growing gold producing regions. Orezone delineated, developed, financed and sold Burkina Faso's largest deposit (Essakane) to IAMGOLD for $350M and continues to focus on developing the rest of its pipeline of advanced projects including Bomboré, one of the largest deposits in Burkina Faso. Orezone's mission is to create wealth by discovering and developing gold resources in an efficient and responsible manner for the benefit of its shareholders and other stakeholders.

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