THE DRILL SERGEANT: Diamond drilling at Doray Minerals, Andy Well project (Doray 80%) has extended the high-grade Wilber Lode to over 600 metres.

This represents a 200 per cent increase in the strike length when compared with the current resource.

A number of holes from the current drilling program have also returned gold intersections.

The high-grade Wilber Lode gold deposit was discovered by Doray in 2010 at Andy Well located 45 kilometres north of Meekatharra in Western Australia.

According to Doray it stands amongst the highest grade undeveloped gold deposits in Australia.

Recent drilling consisted of two diamond holes, which tested the Wilber Shear Zone 450 metres south of the southern boundary of the current resource.

These holes intersected mineralised quartz vein, with visible gold, which the company has interpreted to represent the southern continuation of the high-grade Wilber Lode deposit.

A further hole confirmed the continuation of strong mineralisation at depth below the current resource.

Results of note from the current drilling campaign include:

–    0.9 metres at 39.85 grams per tonne gold from 382.3 metres;

–    1.3m at 50.55g/t gold from 164.75m;

–    0.8m at 117g/t gold from 279.8m; and

–    1m at 200g/t gold from 210.6m;

Doray Minerals managing director Allan Kelly said the results continued to emphasise the quality of the opportunity at the Andy Well project.

“Our current drilling campaign aims to test the depth and strike extents of the Wilber Lode, along with completing infill drilling required for a significant increase in the resource by the end of this year,” Kelly said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“Our step out drilling continues to intersect the Wilber Lode and we have added substantially to the depth and strike extents of the high-grade gold mineralisation, especially when compared with the initial resource published in February this year.”

The Wilber Lode remains open at depth and down plunge to the south.

Doray’s 2011-12 exploration budget includes approximately 60,000m of drilling to be completed at Andy Well this financial year.

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Discovery Metals has released assay results for three diamond drill holes at the Plutus deposit, which is part of the company’s 100 per cent-owned Boseto copper project in Botswana.

The company carried out the drilling in order to confirm the continuity of mineralisation between the base of a planned open pit and a series of deeper holes, which were reported to the market in June.

The Boseto copper project is currently under construction and is scheduled to commence production in the first half of 2012.

Discovery plans production of approximately 36,000 tonnes of copper and more than one million ounces of silver per annum over an initial 15 year mine life.

“The results from these infill holes at Plutus suggests a zone of high grade copper‐silver mineralisation exists, with potential for economic underground mining at depth over a long strike length of at least 1,400 metres at the Plutus deposit,” Discovery Metals managing director Brad Sampson said in the company’s release to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“It is our intention to leverage offs the results of the Definitive Feasibility Study for underground mining (currently being undertaken on the Zeta Deposit and due for completion in December 2011), to better assess the economic potential for an underground mining operation at Plutus.”

Discovery is confident these latest assay results complement those it received from the 11 hole deep drilling program in June.

These confirmed copper‐silver mineralisation at the Plutus deposit extended to approximately 350 metres in depth along the approximately seven kilometres of strike length the company tested at the time.

A zone of higher grades and thicker copper‐silver mineralisation was defined at the north‐eastern end of the Plutus deep drilling.

Three additional holes were then drilled to test the mineralisation at an intermediate depth of approximately 200m within this higher grade zone.

Mineralised intercepts from this drilling include:

–    7 metres at 1.4 per cent copper and 12 grams per tonne silver, including 5.1 metres at 1.9 per cent copper and 16 grams per tonne silver;

–    13.4m at 0.9% copper and 8g/t silver, including 1.4m at 2.1% copper and 27g/t silver; and

–    3.9m at 1.4% copper and 17g/t silver, including 1.9m at 2.1% copper and 28g/t silver.

All three drill holes intersected copper‐silver mineralisation at a vertical depth of approximately 200m below surface.

Discovery said that high-grade copper mineralisation that has been identified is open both along strike and at depth.

The company said it intends to assess the potential for underground mining at Plutus deposit follow completion of a definitive feasibility study for underground mining at the nearby Zeta deposit in late 2011.

“Successful delineation of economic underground mineral resources at Plutus will provide additional mining opportunities to those considered in the Boseto Development Plan and may contribute to increasing both the scale and/or life of operations at Boseto and also enable enhanced mine scheduling flexibility,” the company said.

Discovery will conduct further drilling below the 200m level at Plutus once the assessment for the potential of underground mining is complete.

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Manas Resources has upgraded the Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resource at the Shambesai gold prospect at the company’s 100 per cent-owned Isfairamsai License area in the Kyrgyz Republic.

The Shambesai Resource has been increased to 11.6 million tonnes at 2.1 grams per tonne gold for 766,000 ounces of gold at 0.5 grams per tonne gold cut-off.

“This is an increase of approximately twenty per cent on the previous Shambesai Mineral Resource estimate of 645,000 ounces, with a marked increase in tonnes and ounces,” Manas said in its ASX announcement.

“Most importantly, all of the 120,000 ounce increase has been attributed to the high‐value oxide resource, or an increase of forty per cent including reclassified material.

“Sixty per cent of the Resource ounces are now classified as oxides, with 54 per cent of total Resources in the Indicated category, and the mineralisation remains open to the west and at depth.

“The global Mineral Resource reportable under the JORC code for the South Kyrgyz gold project now stands at 1.25 million ounces of gold.”

The latest upgraded Shambesai gold Mineral Resource is the result of an infill and extensional drilling program where 12,535m of diamond drill core was completed in August 2011, combined with the results of an infill program completed by Manas in 2010.

The company’s main focus for the Shambesai drilling has been on areas it considers critical to expanding the shallow oxide resource, expanding the western pit boundary and increasing the economics of the pit optimisation for the Feasibility Study.

“These drill programs deliberately targeted lower grade oxide material with the view of adding additional ounces of gold as the low‐cost processing methodology for Shambesai provides for extra ounces immediately translating into additional cash flow,” the company said.

Manas puts total discovery costs for the Shambesai Mineral Resource at approximately US$9 per ounce.

The company is set to commence a program of infill grade‐control drilling at the high‐grade far‐eastern area targeting an upgrade to this portion of the oxide Mineral Resource.

Drilling is also being planned to infill areas along the shear zone to follow up on results of 33.7m at 10.7g/t gold and 21m at 9.71g/t gold, and at depth on the western extensions to follow up the most recent result of 54m at 2.9g/t gold from within an 87m long mineralised zone at depth.
 
Drilling is ongoing at other prospects including Obdilla, Ulugtau and Tashbulak.

THE DRILL SERGEANT: The wholly owned subsidiary company of uranium explorer Deep Yellow has received chemical assay results from its ongoing drilling program at the Ongolo Alaskite deposit and its satellite MS7 in Namibia.

Deep Yellow said the results achieved by Reptile Uranium Namibia had confirmed additional high-grade intercepts.

“In just over a month we have more than doubled MS7’s area with these high-grade, wide intersections,” Deep Yellow managing director Greg Cochran said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“Clearly, the possibility that MS7 may ultimately join up with Ongolo is steadily increasing.

“However, as a result of the success at both locations, we have decided to delay the update of the Ongolo Resource in order to continue Phase 2 drilling and also to first complete a maiden JORC compliant resource estimate for MS7.”

The drill program at the Ongolo Alaskite deposit continues despite missing the scheduled cut-off date for the next JORC Resource update 0n 23 September.

Step-out reconnaissance drilling over two kilometres strike from Ongolo to the MS7 prospect will now continue through to the summer break in mid-December.

Results from drilling so far include:

• 10 metres at 853 parts per million uranium from 72 metres and 9 metres at 824 parts per million uranium from 127 metres;
• 30m at 727ppm uranium from 109m;
• 15m at 696ppm uranium from 137 metres; and
• 18m at 429ppm uranium from 41m and 12m at 417ppm uranium from 132m.

Deep Yellow has submitted the results of RC drilling carried out to date at the MS7 prospect for a maiden JORC Resource estimate, which it anticipates to be completed before the end of September.

“Drilling has returned consistently good results with growing recognition that the geology of the prospect closely replicates the main Ongolo resource area and may, with further drilling, join up with it,” Deep Yellow said.

“From regional geology it is believed that the uranium bearing alaskites are within the Khan formation and mineralisation usually seems to be concentrated when the marble acts as an impermeable layer.”

Results from the RC drilling include:

• 18 metres at 491 parts per million uranium from 48 metres and 12 metres at 563 parts per million uranium from 78 metres;
• 5m at 446ppm uranium from 5m; and
• 5m at 434ppm uranium from 111m.

The company said it intends to continue resource and delineation drilling at the Omahola project area utilising both RC and diamond drilling.

A vertical diamond hole will be drilled at MS7 for later geotechnical and metallurgical testing.

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Africa-focused resource company Globe Metals & Mining has received the first batch of analytical results from a recently-completed Main Fluorite – Rare Earth Element (REE) Zone drilling program at the company’s Mount Muambe project in Mozambique.

Results for the initial eight reverse circulation drill holes from the Main fluorite prospect have demonstrated multiple zones of high-grade fluorite mineralisation at Mount Muambe.

Significant grades and widths of REE mineralisation were intersected, with many zones having high Heavy Rare Earth Oxide (HREO) to Total Rare Earth Oxide (TREO) ratios.

Globe Metals said that it expects further drilling will continue to return strong results.

Highlights from the initial eight RC holes show wide, high-grade, near surface fluorite zones including:

–    21 metres at 26.7 per cent fluorite, including 9 metres at 41.1 per cent fluorite; and

–    30m at 28.4% fluorite, including 15m at 38.0% fluorite and 44m at 1.0% TREO, including 10m at 2.0% TREO.

“Fluorite has seen a significant price hike in recent times,” Globe Metals said in its ASX announcement.

“Included in the list of 14 raw materials labelled “critical” by a European Union expert group, it is no surprise that China – by far the largest consumer and responsible for more than 50% of production globally – has adopted new policy designed to limit the export of fluorite resources.”

Five holes in the recently completed program were selected for REE analyses.

In all these holes, the company said it had encountered both LREO and HREO-enriched zones.

The amount of significant REE results returned has prompted the company to submit all samples taken from the fluorite zone for routine REE analysis.

Further drilling results are expected to follow over the next four months as the drilling program of around12,000 metres continues.

Globe Metals will be focussing most of the remaining drilling to be completed this year on pure REE targets including, but not limited to those, in zones DD and EE outside of the Main Fluorite Zone.

The company has already earned 20% of the project and by the end of 2011 will have earned 51% through its exploration programs at Mount Muambe.

Globe Metals is also currently running exploration activity across a number of other projects it has, which are at an earlier stage of development than Mount Muambe.

The company is earning up to an 80% interest in the Machinga rare earth project in southern Malawi, and can earn up to a 90% interest in the Mount Muambe REE – Fluorite project.