Ampella set for Konkera upgrade

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: Ampella Mining has struck high-grade gold mineralisation from first pass deep drilling program at its Batie West project in Burkina Faso, West Africa.

Ampella said the deep drilling program at Konkera North has potential to add a substantial increase to the current 2.2 million ounce JORC Code Compliant Konkera gold Resource (Indicated Resource of 22.5 Mt at 1.6 g/t gold for 1,182,600 ounces gold and Inferred Resource of 19.9 Mt at 1.6 g/t gold for 1,041,500 ounces gold).

The company has received assays from Konkera North for 16 out of 19 deep drill-holes for a total of 7,966.1m of drilling designed to test a 2,000m long strike of the current resource down to a depth of 400m.

Each hole intersected the targeted ore position at depth which included:

– 16 metres at 4.4 g/t gold and 8 metres at 6.5 g/t gold;

– 11m at 3.7 g/t gold and 4m at 7.3 g/t gold;

– 7m at 4.6 g/t gold, 5m at 5.8 g/t gold and 5m at 5.0 g/t gold; and

– 23m at 2.4 g/t gold and 11m at 2.0 g/t gold.

Assay results are still to be received from the three remaining deep drill holes.

The company said each of these drill holes has intersected zones of intense albitesericite-carbonate-pyrite alteration, which it considers to be associated with gold mineralisation contained in the existing Indicated and Inferred Resource.

“Ongoing infill drilling will be used to increase the confidence levels for new gold ounces added to this resource and could pull open-pit designs significantly below the current resource,” Ampella said in its ASX release.

“This first pass drilling will also provide valuable geological information which can be used to target the plunge of any of the previously intersected higher grade shoots of mineralisation that will be targeted to test the underground potential of the deposit.”

Ampella plans to complete in excess of 200,000m of diamond and reverse circulation drilling throughout 2011 as part of a $31 million exploration program.

This program will concentrate primarily on resource expansion at Konkera and resource identification at new regional targets across the Batie West project.