Banro has increased Measured & Indicated mineral resources by 23% at Twangiza to 3.9 Moz. This is one of four Banro projects on Twangiza-Namoya gold belt in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The belt is over 200 km long, running south from Twangiza, south of Bukavu on the southern tip of Lake Kivu. This great project is featured in detail in International Mining’s upcoming February issue.

Highlights of the latest results from Twangiza include:

• Measured and Indicated mineral resources have increased by 23% to 3,872,000 oz of gold (53,629,000 t grading 2.25 g/t Au)
• The Inferred mineral resource now stands at 2,705,000 oz of gold (46,188,000 t grading 1.82 g/t Au)
• Total mineral resources at the Twangiza North deposit have increased significantly, and currently consist of an Indicated resource of 700,000 oz of gold (7,332,000 t grading 2.97 g/t Au) and an Inferred resource of 490,000 oz of gold (6,349,000 t at 2.4 g/t Au).  

The increase in mineral resources results from the ongoing infill, core drilling program on the Twangiza North deposit with the objective of upgrading and increasing the previously defined Inferred mineral resource.  An additional 65 core holes totalling 13,751.24 m have been included in this resource update since the previous resource update in June 2007.

Table I below summarizes the current mineral resource estimates for the Twangiza project.  These estimates relate to the Twangiza Main and Twangiza North deposits and have an effective date of December 12, 2007.

Table I

(using a 1.0 g/t Au cutoff and with Tonnes and Ounces rounded to nearest `000).

Table II below summarises the estimated mineral resources for Twangiza in terms of oxide, transitional and fresh rock (sulphide) categories.

Table II

(using a 1.0 g/t Au cutoff and with Tonnes and Ounces rounded to nearest `000).

Table III below summarizes the current mineral resource estimates for the Twangiza North deposit alone.

Table III

(using a 1.0 g/t Au cutoff and with Tonnes and Ounces rounded to nearest `000).

Commenting on these results at Twangiza, Peter Cowley, President of the Company, said: “The infill drilling program at our Twangiza North discovery has been successful in rapidly converting the previous Inferred resource into Indicated as well as increasing the total mineral resources at this deposit.  The mineralisation at Twangiza North is hosted mainly in feldspar porphyry sills with the mineralisation in this lithology being non-refractory.  We expect to further increase our Measured and Indicated resources at Twangiza in the coming months as we complete infill drilling at Twangiza North and then commence infill drilling at the Twangiza Main deposit.  Drilling has now recommenced after the year-end break with four core rigs at Twangiza with the goal of adding to and upgrading these resources which will then be incorporated into the prefeasibility study due for completion during the second quarter of this year.

In addition, we have now established a new camp at the major artisanal site at Mufwa which is situated 14 km northwest of the Twangiza Main deposit.  Additional rigs are being mobilized to Twangiza so this new prospect can also be drilled during the coming months after groundwork has been completed.”

The Mineral Resources at Twangiza were calculated from the current and previous core drilling programs as well as previous adit information. Gold grades in the Twangiza Main deposit have been determined using ordinary kriging into a 3-D block model constrained by wireframes with primary block dimensions of 20 m along the strike and cross structure directions, and 10 m in the vertical direction. Gold grades in the Twangiza North deposit have been determined using weighted inverse distance squared into a 3-D block model constrained by wireframes for the mineralisation with primary block dimensions of 10 m along the strike and cross structure directions, and 5 m in the vertical direction.  Higher-grade values in the oxide and transition material have been statistically capped to 32 g/t Au, while in the sulphide material higher-grade values have been statistically capped to 20 g/t Au.  Tonnages and grades are reported using a 1.0 g/t Au cutoff.

Drill cores for assaying were taken at a maximum of 1 m intervals and were cut with a diamond saw with one-half of the core placed in sealed bags and sent to the company’s sample preparation facility in Bukavu, DRC.  The core samples were then crushed down to minus 2 mm, and split with half of the sample pulverised down to 90% passing 75 micron.  Approximately 150 g of the pulverised sample was then shipped to the SGS Laboratory in Mwanza, Tanzania where the samples were analysed for gold by fire assay using a 50 g charge.  As part of the company’s QA/QC procedures, internationally recognised standards, duplicates and blanks were inserted into the sample batches.