THE DRILL SERGEANT: Cove Resources has been encouraged by results it has received from a second drilling program carried out on the company’s Goongarrie project in Western Australia.

The Goongarrie project is made up of five Prospecting Licences that cover the historic Goongarrie gold mining centre situated in the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia.

Cove completed a total of 28 RC holes for 2,232 metres, focussing on the Caledonian, Frank North and Goongarrie West prospects.

 

Drilling beneath the shallow Caledonian Pit. Source: Company announcement

According to Cove the recent drilling has identified a continuous zone of mineralisation over 120m.

Cove claimed the best result it achieved from the latest program of 43 metres at 1.55 grams per tonne gold is directly along strike from a hole the company drilled in an earlier campaign, which returned 57m at 1.23 g/t gold.

Other results of particular note from the drilling included:

Caledonian Prospect

–    5m at 3.24 g/t gold from 24m and 3m at 1.64 g/t gold from 72m;

–    1m at 38 g/t gold from 11m and 43m at 1.55 g/t gold from 71m, including 6m at 3.52 g/t gold from 106m.

Frank North Prospect

–    2m at 1.55 g/t gold from 2m, and 7m at 3.25 g/t gold from 35m, including 1m at 20.2 g/t gold from 36m;

–    4m at 1.41 g/t gold from 10m including 1m at 4.65 g/t gold from 10m.

West Goongarrie Prospect

–    1m at 1.21 g/t gold from 21m; and

–    1m at 2.18 g/t gold from 42m.

Surface rock sampling from a small pit above one of the drillholes returned 18.75 g/t gold and 19.7 g/t silver.

Cove said several low grade gold intervals were noted in most of the holes along the gold soil anomaly.

“These results will be interpreted together with previous drill results and a new program and the next phase of work will be implemented in the new year,” Cove Resources said in its ASX announcement.

“The near surface gold mineralisation is over wide intervals which increases the development potential of the area.

“Drillholes are currently being surveyed and full data, including plans and cross sections incorporating current and previous drilling will be provided shortly.”

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Centaurus Metals has commenced a round of Reverse Circulation (RC) drilling its Jambreiro iron ore project in south-east Brazil.

The new drilling program is part of a Bankable Feasibility Study work program.

 

RC Rig drilling at Jambreiro project. Source: Company announcement

 

“The RC in-fill program, which is one of several programs to be undertaken as part of the BFS, is planned to convert the first 2-3 years of friable ore production into Proven Reserves, which will assist with securing the debt funding component of the overall project funding package for Jambreiro,” Centaurus Metals explained in its ASX announcement.

“The drilling will also enable the company to collect a bulk sample and use it in pilot plant testwork, which will greatly assist in securing product off-take arrangements with the Brazilian domestic steel mills.”

The new phase of drilling follows the release of a Pre-Feasibility Study on the Jambreiro project, which outlined a two million tonnes per annum project capable of generating revenues of $1.4 billion and EBITDA of $948 million over an initial 8.5 year life.

The overall RC drill program to be carried out at Jambreiro will comprise 2,250 metres of drilling with 1,750 metres of shallow drilling being undertaken to intersect the ore from surface to the bottom of the anticipated year-three pit.

A further 500m of drilling will also be carried out to test for pit extensions between the Tigre and Cruzeiro deposits in an area of the Jambreiro project that was not previously drilled.

Once Centaurus has completed drilling completed at Jambreiro, it said it will move the RC rig to undertake exploration drilling on the surrounding tenements in the Guanhães Region.

Centaurus has 18 tenements (including Jambreiro and Candonga) in the Guanhães Region covering a total area of 25,000 hectares.

The company has used surface mapping to identify itabirite mineralisation on 13 of the 18 tenements.

Centaurus said it has planned 2,500m of RC drilling to test some of the targets on these tenements.

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Andrew Forrest-led Poseidon Nickel has received news that its Windarra nickel project in Western Australia will not require formal assessment by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Instead the environmental approval for the project is to be managed under Part V of the Environmental Protection Act of 1986.

Receipt of this conditional waiver means the company’s plans for the development of the Windarra nickel project remain on track.

The Poseidon said this meant it would be able to achieve all of the necessary mining and environmental approvals during the first quarter of 2012.

The EPA waiver for the project was first granted in 2008.

“Substantial changes to the project, most notably incorporation of mining activities at the Cerberus nickel deposit, meant that a re-application for a waiver was necessary,” Poseidon Nickel said in its ASX announcement.

“The process should now deliver a rapid assessment within the development time scales of the project.”

Poseidon Nickel claims the Windarra nickel project to be a higher-grade nickel sulphide deposit that has demonstrated high recovery levels through a standard nickel floatation concentrator.

The total current Mineral Resource is located at two positions approximately 10 kilometres apart and includes an existing brownfields mine at Mt Windarra and a new discovery at Cerberus.

 

Source: Company announcement

Poseidon said it is on track to complete a definitive feasibility study by the end of 2011.

The company is targeting initial concentrate production in 2013.

A concentrator plant is to be constructed at Mt Windarra, which the company expects to have a nameplate capacity of 700,000 tonnes of ore per annum.

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Horseshoe Metals has completed its first drilling program at the company’s 100 per cent-owned Kumarina project in Western Australia.

A total of 51 Reverse Circulation Percussion holes were drilled at the Rinaldi and North Show prospects for a total of 3,429 metres with holes ranging in depth from 26 to 149 metres.

According to Horseshoe the drilling at the Rinaldi prospect produced the best results.
At Rinaldi copper sulphide mineralisation was observed in 11 holes along a north-south oriented fault zone for a distance of about 300 metres.

Best results recorded at the Rinaldi Prospect include:

–    28 metres at 2.0 per cent copper from 56 metres, including 2 metres at 5.3 per cent copper from 58m, 2 metres at 3.5 per cent copper from 63 metres and 2 metres at 5.7 per cent copper from 68 metres;

–    5m at 3.6 per cent copper from 49m, including a peak intersection of 1m at 13.4 per cent copper from 50m and 7m at 1.1 per cent copper from 82m;

–    17m at 2.8 per cent copper from 35m including 5m at 5.0 per cent copper from 35m and 1m at 5.8 per cent copper from 48m;

–    14m at 2.7 per cent copper from 22m, including 5m at 4.6 per cent copper from 25m, including 1m at 8.4 per cent copper from 28m; and

–    27m at 1.3 per cent copper from 65m, including 2m at 3.3 per cent copper from 65m and 2m at 4.3 per cent copper from 85m.

“The copper sulphide mineralisation consists mainly of chalcopyrite and appears to be hosted by quartz veins within and just above a dolerite intrusion,” Horseshoe Metals said in ijts ASX announcement.

“The structure is interpreted to be associated with a north-south oriented fault zone.

‘Importantly, this copper mineralisation zone remains open along strike and down dip and will be tested by further RC drilling.

“The occurrence of zones of high grade copper mineralisation at the Rinaldi prospect is considered by the company to be very encouraging.”

The drilling carried out at the North Show prospect intersected shallow copper oxide mineralisation.
The mineralisation consists of secondary copper minerals producing lower grade but consistent copper results.

Horseshoe Metals said it intends to recommence drilling at Kumarina, which will focus on the Rinaldi and Kumarina copper mine prospect areas.

This program is planned to be completed before the driller’s Christmas break with laboratory analysis of the drilling samples to follow in early 2012.

As a consequence of this second drilling program at Kumarina, the company has re-scheduled drilling planned for the Horseshoe Lights project into 2012.

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Deep Yellow has had a maiden JORC Mineral Resource estimate completed for its Shiyela iron project in Namibia.

The Shiyela project is located on an exploration licence which is held 100 per cent by Deep Yellow’s wholly-owned Namibian subsidiary, Reptile Uranium Namibia.

The new Inferred Resource estimate totals 78.7 million tonnes at 18.88 per cent iron at 10 per cent Davis tube Recovery (DTR) cut-off for the M62 and M63 magnetite deposits with an average DTR magnetite content of 16.17 per cent.

 

JORC Mineral Resource Estimate Shiyela – December 2011. Source: Company announcement

 

The company has previously told the market that chemical assays conducted on concentrates produced from DTR testwork confirmed that Shiyela could produce a quality magnetite with high iron and low impurity levels suitable as a Blast Furnace product.

“This is another solid step forward in our assessment of the Shiyela iron project,” Deep Yellow managing director Greg Cochran said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“Whilst we are pleased with the result we recognise that more drilling and analysis must be done to enhance the resource base. In the meantime our consultants ProMet are currently finalising the Scoping Study and the market can expect an announcement in that regard next week.”

Deep Yellow completed an exploration program earlier this year, consisting 210 Reverse Circulation and Diamond Drilling holes for 38,473 metres of drilling.

The company said this drilling had confirmed strong mineralised zones in both the M62 and M63 deposits.

Deep Yellow has now commenced a large-diameter diamond drilling program to provide core for the company’s next phase of metallurgical testwork, as part of a planned Feasibility Study.

The program will comprise at least 3 holes at both M62 and M63 for approximately 1,000 metres of PQ core to generate some 16 tonnes of mineralised material.

Subject to the availability of funding for the project  a program of RC and diamond drilling to target  lateral and depth extensions to the M62 and M63 deposits will be conducted in 2012.