Argonaut kicks off at Ban Klong

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Argonaut Resources has kicked off a 5,000 metre RC drilling program at the Ban Klong prospect, situated within the company’s Ban Bak project area on its Xekong concession in southern Laos.

The new drilling program is targeting gold mineralisation discovered by Argonaut last year through an exploration program of surface geochemical sampling, channel sampling and drilling.

“The exploration program is targeting replacement style gold mineralisation analogous in nature to mineralisation found at the Sepon gold mine in Laos and at the Carlin trend in Nevada, USA,” Argonaut Resources said in its ASX announcement.

In July 2011 the company announced that drilling at the Ban Klong prospect in the north-western corner of the Ban Bak area had intercepted:

–    6m at 26.2 grams per tonne gold from 22 metres, including 2 metres at 76.4 grams per tonne gold from 24 metres;

–     12m at 3.48g/t gold from 10m; and

–    8m at 4.45g/t gold from 0m.

“Ban Klong drill intercepts cited above may not represent the true widths of mineralised bodies,” Argonaut said.

“Additional drill hole data is required to properly determine the geometry and dimensions of any potentially economic mineralisation.”

Argonaut said the recently-commenced 59 hole program would be focusing on determining the geometry of the mineralisation the company intercepted by RC drilling in April/May 2011.

Once it has established the orientation of several known mineralised bodies, the company said the program will seek to define the approximate extent of the gold mineralisation.

Additionally, gold targets peripheral to Ban Klong that were defined by surface geochemistry during 2011 will be tested.