THE DRILL SERGEANT: Queensland-based copper explorer Coppermoly has commenced a program of approximately 1675 metres of reverse circulation (RC) drilling on the company’s farm-in venture at Esk Trough in Queensland.

The drilling program has been designed to test for extensions to copper and gold grades near surface at the Kakapo and White Horse prospects within the Booubyjan tenement.

Coppermoly has a farm-in agreement with ActivEx at the Esk Trough project, which consists of five exploration permits in south-east Queensland.

 

Location of the Esk Trough project, Queensland. Source: Company announcement

ActivEx is managing the first stage of the exploration program while Coppermoly can earn a 51 per cent interest in the project by spending $3 million over three years and can further elect to advance its interest to 70 per cent.

Drilling at the Kakapo prospect will follow up on extensions and continuity of historical drilling results, such as 88 metres at 0.47 per cent copper and 0.49 grams per tonne gold; and 1.8 metres at 2.12 per cent copper.

“The drilling program at Kakapo follows the successful three-dimensional Induced Polarisation (3DIP) geophysical program, completed in April, covering a 700 metre by 600 metre gold-in-soils anomaly,” Coppermoly said in its ASX announcement.

“This survey identified particular zones where copper mineralisation occur, including within the near-surface ‘blue’ conductivity image which shows possible extensions of mineralisation.

“Further analysis of the geophysical data will be undertaken once the additional drilling has been completed.”

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Castle Minerals has completed a round of auger geochemical drilling at the Pole prospect situated within the company’s Wa project in Ghana.

Castle has six projects in Ghana covering more than 11,000 square kilometres, including the Wa project, which holds an Indicated and Inferred resource of 163,700 ounces of gold, where it has defined a number of gold anomalies.

“This is a significant new gold target with our auger sampling successfully defining a number of large high tenor gold anomalies in an attractive geological setting along the eastern margin of the Wa‐Lawra greenstone belt,” Castle Minerals managing director Mike Ivey said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“Our exploration strategy continues to successfully generate greenfield targets of considerable scale and provides much encouragement that the rocks within our larger Wa project are capable of hosting world class gold deposits.”

 

Auger geochemistry results and interpreted geology for the Pole prospect. Source: Company announcement

The auger drilling campaign followed regional soil sampling conducted by Castle on four kilometre spaced lines that generated a 230 parts per billion gold soil results on what now forms the southern part of the Pole prospect within the Wa project.

The company tested a 10km long area by carrying out auger drilling on 800m by 50m centres, which it said had generated some substantial anomalies.

 The largest of these anomalies is 5km long (at plus-50 ppb gold) and includes a peak auger sample reporting 7,170ppb gold.

Castle is now conducting field mapping and site inspection in preparation for RAB drilling.

THE DRILL SERGEANT: New drilling being conducted by Emmerson Resources on the Goanna copper/gold discovery at the company’s Tennant Creek project has hit more, high-grade copper.

Drilling within the Southern shear zone at the Goanna project has produced intersections including:

24.1 metres at 4.12 per cent copper and 0.19 grams per tonne gold, from 357.9 metres, including 1.25 metres at 12.5 per cent copper, 0.18 grams per tonne gold and 29.8 per cent iron, from 368.25 metres.

And a further lower zone of:

5.6m at 2.27 per cent copper, from 417.4m; and

0.75m at 0.97 per cent bismuth, from 436.25m.

 

Plan view of the drill holes and recent mineralization at Goanna on a
background of the HeliTEM geophysics. Source: Company announcement

Emmerson said the high bismuth grade and a change in drill rig orientation has taken the project towards locating an expected high-grade gold zone in addition to the high-grade copper zone closer to the surface.

“Information drawn from this year’s program of extending the existing Reverse Circulation (RC) drill holes with diamond tails has provided a new understanding of the geometry of this ore body,” Emmerson Resources managing director Rob Bills said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“The high grades found in hole GODD0015 represent, what we now believe, is a true-width intersection of the ore body (i.e. the drill hole has intersected the mineralisation perpendicular to the interpreted plunge).

“This is a vital step in gaining a proper understanding of the ore body.

“This hole has revealed that, not only is this mineralisation open up and down plunge, but, given the previous intersections in the other three shear zones nearby, is likely to be repeated.

“Importantly, for the future discovery of high grade gold ore at Goanna, bismuth veins were intersected in the lower most zone (the footwall of the copper mineralisation) of drill hole GODD0015.

“The presence of bismuth in ore zones at Tennant Creek is typically a good pathfinder for gold and suggests great potential for bonanza gold in the vicinity.”

Emmerson considers the latest drilling continues to provide strong encouragement that the emerging Goanna and Monitor discoveries, combined with the updated resource calculation from the nearby Gecko mine, form the basis for a future, high grade resource base, for resumption of mining and subsequent copper and gold production from its 100 per cent-owned Emmerson mill.

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Endeavour Mining has expanded the sulphide drilling program currently underway at the company’s 90 per cent-owned Nzema gold mine in south-western Ghana.

The expansion to the drilling program follows a review of drilling results the company has received to date, the delivery of the Conceptual Trade-off Study by AMEC Minproc and initial metallurgical testwork completed by SGS Australia Mineral Services.

Endeavour said recent drilling has confirmed the presence of several sulphide ore shoots below the principal oxide pits at the Salman Trend.

 

Plan map of the Salman Trend showing areas of Nzema sulphide drilling program. Source: Company announcement

 

Highlights include:

Teberu

–    9 metres at 4.91 grams per tonne gold from 109 metres;

–    14m at 4.13 g/t gold from 104m;

–    14m at 3.15 g/t gold from 124m;

–    10m at 3.84 g/t gold from 72m; and

–    14m at 2.48 g/t gold from 30m.

Salman North

–    3m at11.52 g/t gold from 79m; and

–    12m at 9.67 g/t gold from 38m.

Nugget Hill

–    10m at 3.75 g/t gold from 108m; and

–    16m at 2.04 g/t gold from 62m.

Salman South

–    14m at 1.94 g/t gold from 63m; and

–    8m at 1.67 g/t gold from 88m.

“On the basis of these encouraging results the Nzema exploration program was expanded to include a larger sulphide drilling program, metallurgical testwork, and completion of a preliminary economic assessment by the end of 2012,” Endeavour Mining said in its ASX announcement.

“At Teberu, Salman North and Salman South drilling results demonstrate the existence of wide zones of higher grade mineralization that represent ore shoots plunging shallowly to the south. Closer-spaced drilling has commenced at the locations of the ore shoots (50 metre by 50 metre grid) to assess continuity and to provide sufficient data for the generation of an inferred resource.”

Endeavour said it considers the sulphide gold zones at Salman represent a target with potential to increase production at Nzema.

The company will use the upcoming testwork to examine process alternatives currently being employed to treat refractory sulphide mineralisation within West Africa.

Endeavour increased the budget for the program from US$2.4 million to US$6.4 million for 2012 in order to accelerate the drilling and achieve its study objectives.

A total of 40 holes totalling 5,174 m have been completed thus far in the 2012 drilling campaign.

THE DRILL SERGEANT: West African Resources has received all results from a program of auger drilling conducted on the Zam Sud, Sondo and Sondo Sud permits situated on the company’s 100 per cent-owned gold projects in Burkina Faso, West Africa.

The company has interpreted the results to have has extended its Moktedu prospect by 3.2 kilometres to a total strike length of 10 kilometres.

 

West African Resources’ permits in Burkina Faso. Source: Company announcement

 

The new zones incorporating the extension to Moktedu will be tested by aircore drilling in June 2012.

West African has so far tested the central portion of the anomaly by RAB and aircore drilling over approximately 3km strike, which has identified the anomaly remains to be tested to the northeast.

The central 500 metres of the prospect has been drilled with wide-spaced RC and diamond drilling, and has returned high-grade results including:

– 21 metres at 1.13 grams per tonne gold from 121 metres, including 1 metre at 10.96 grams per tonne gold;

– 6m at 5.78g/t gold from 74m, including 1m at 28.40g/t gold;

– 4m at 8.39g/t gold from 4m;

– 6m at 8.36g/t gold from surface, including 1m at 42.95g/t gold; and

– 3m at 7.64g/t gold from 33m, including 1m at 20.93g/t gold.

West African said the drilling  had also identified three new zones south of the 3.5 million ounce gold Bomboré deposit on the Sondo and Sondo Sud Permits.

“The new targets will be in-filled auger drilled on 200 metre by 50 metre grids following the completion of the current auger programs on the Goudre permit and will be systematically tested with either RAB or aircore drilling later in 2012,” West Africa Resources said in its ASX announcement.
 
“Three high tenor zones remain to be tested on the Bissiri permit, located to the west of the Bomboré deposit.

“RAB drilling programs have been planned for these targets this field season.”

West African Resources said it is drilling approximately 15,000m per month, however like most of its contemporaries it is having difficulties with assay turnaround, which continues to be an issue with Burkina Faso laboratories.