THE DRILL SERGEANT: West Africa-focused gold exploration play Eagle Eye Metals has received the results of a recently completed maiden Reverse Circulation (RC) drilling campaign.

The drilling campaign was undertaken on 100 metre spaced sections over an 800 metre long portion of the extensive 5,000 metre long gold-in-soil anomaly at the Kourouba prospect located within the company’s Dankassa gold project in Mali.

A total of 24 holes were completed for 2,400 metres.

Eagle Eye is confident the drilling has confirmed primary gold mineralisation extends over more than 800m of strike while remaining open in all directions.

All assay results from the drilling have now been received with better results including:

– 32 metres at 0.8 grams per tonne gold from 78m;

– 12m at 1.67 g/t gold from 26m;

– 7m at 1.12 g/t gold from 16m;

– 7m at 1.00 g/t gold from 48m;

– 3m at 2.10 g/t gold from 37m;

– 3m at 1.59 g/t gold from 40m;

– 2m at 1.66 g/t gold from 73m; and

– 2m at 1.55 g/t gold from surface.

The company said the recent drilling, combined with previous drilling carried out by previous owners, has highlighted higher grade shoots occurring within the broader mineralised envelopes.

Additional drilling is planned to confirm the continuity of the higher grade zones.

“These high-grade shoots appear to persist at depth,” Eagle Eye said in its ASX announcement.

“The highly encouraging results reported here confirm the presence of a large mineralised system at the Kourouba prospect.

“The character of mineralisation and widespread distribution of gold suggests significant lode gold potential.

“The company continues to believe there is excellent scope to discover bulk mineable gold resources here.”

So far less than 20% of the identified 5,000m long, soil-geochemistry anomaly at the Kourouba prospect has been evaluated with drilling.

The company has already has plans underway to implement a follow-up RC and aircore drilling program to infill and extend drill coverage at the Kourouba prospect during September.

Additional drilling and detailed reconnaissance will also be undertaken within the broader Kourouba prospect area and further afield within the Dankassa gold project, where the company says, numerous other gold in soil trends remain untested.

Eagle Eye Metals has interests in several prospective gold projects in Mali and Liberia in West Africa.

The company recently raised approximately $3.4 million and is now well financed to embark on an aggressive exploration program and to assess new opportunities.

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Australian base metals explorer Ventnor Resources has received results from a second round of drilling at its Thaduna and Green Dragon copper project.

The Thaduna/Green Dragon project is located 40 kilometres east of Sandfire Resources’ Degrussa project in the Doolgunna district 170 kilometres north of Meekatharra in Western Australia.

Throughout June and July, Ventnor completed a 6,020 metre RC drilling program at the Thaduna/Green Dragon project.

This program was designed to follow up results from the company’s initial 2,762m drill program.

The purpose of this drilling program was to extend the known mineralisation along strike and down dip from mineralisation intersected in the previous program.

The second round of drilling has been successful in that aim to the point where Ventor considers it now provides a platform for a Resource definition drilling program.

This is currently being planned and is scheduled to commence in the December quarter.

Only the copper results have been determined and tabulated at this stage.

Gold and silver assays are pending with significant silver intersections, coincident with copper intersections, having been assayed in the first phase of drilling.

A total of 46 new holes were drilled; 26 holes for 3,520 metres at Thaduna and 20 holes for 2,420 metres at Green Dragon.

The second phase of drilling results from Thaduna confirmed continuous copper mineralisation with intersections including:

– 5 metres at 4.21% copeer from 30 metres downhole;

– 3m at 4.47% copper from 121m;

– 5m at 5.10% copper from 100m;

– 4m at 3.85% copper from 122m; and

– 11m at 5.57% copper from 100m.

Additional copper mineralisation was also discovered along strike 300 metres north of the existing Thaduna pit.

Drilling at the Green Dragon prospect also confirmed continuous copper mineralisation with intersections including:

– 2 metres at 9.00% copper from 85 metres downhole;

– 4m at 2.98% copper from 44m;

– 4m at 7.86% copper from 60m;

– 5m at 6.07% copper from 80m;

– 12m at 5.07% copper from 64m; and

– 5m at 5.93% copper from 88m.

Drilling at Green Dragon also confirmed an additional hanging wall copper mineralised zone discovered in the first drill program and identified an additional footwall zone at Green Dragon.

“The success of the drilling program has revealed, in my opinion, the most significant copper results in the Doolgunna District, since Sandfire’s DeGrussa discovery, and justifies Ventnor’s aggressive exploration program,” Ventnor Resources Managing Director Mr Bruce Maluish said.

“The mineralisation is open along strike, down dip and to surface and Ventnor is planning an additional drill program with the intent to determine a maiden JORC compliant Resource for a scoping study to be completed in the March 2012 quarter,” Mr Maluish said.

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Drilling at the Baramine project of Shaw River Manganese the Pilbara region of Western Australia has returned promising results with grades of up to 46% manganese.

The latest results come from a recently completed a 10,000 metres RC drilling program at Baramine.

Shaw River is confident the results highlight Baramine’s strong potential and intends to proceed with resource estimation, drilling and beneficiation testwork at the project.

The recent drilling has followed up previous results, which identified a corridor of manganese mineralisation known as the Area 3 – Area 4 corridor.

The latest assay results include two intersections of 46% manganese, the highest achieved at the project to date as well as the identification of a coherent zone of manganese at Area 3.

The latest drilling program consisted of 86 holes of RC drilling for 10,308m.

Overall 42 of the 81 holes analysed to date have intersected greater than eight per cent manganese mineralisation.

Area 3 Results include:

– 10m at 31% manganese from 36m, including 1m at 37.2% manganese and 1m at 46.3% manganese;

– 6m at 28.8% manganese from 67m, including 1m at 46.4% manganese, (part of 3m at 39.7% manganese);

– 5m at 22.8% manganese from 46m, including 2m at 30.4% manganese;

– 10m at 15% manganese from 11m, including 4m at 20.1% manganese; and

– 8m at 19.8% manganese from 31m, including 1m at 31.6% manganese.

One of the holes, drilled to a depth of 152m contained an average of 10% manganese over its entire length from surface.

Area 4 results include:

– 10m at 19.3% manganese from 91m, including 2m at 35.3% manganese (part of 6m at 25% manganese); and

– 6m at 18% manganese from 70m.

Following the success of the current program, Shaw River intends to carry out follow up drill programs including diamond drilling for beneficiation test work.

These are being planned to infill and extend the discoveries at Area 3-Area 4.

“The mineralisation intersected to date and trends identified on the surface strongly warrant resource definition and further work on manganese recovery,” Shaw River Resources said in its ASX announcement.

“Earlier work on DMS (Dense Media Separation) indicated the ability of 20% manganese feed material being able to produce a concentrate grading 43% manganese and 10% iron, which would add strongly to the prospects of a future operation at Baramine.”

The copany has identified a number of regional drilling targets and and has ranked these through a re-interpretation of available geophysical and geochemical data including XTEM, gravity, rock chip and trenching data.

Follow up drilling during the 2012 drilling season will include drilling on these targets.

JETT RINK: Australian-based Norwest Energy successfully drilled the Arrowsmith‐2 well in June 2011 as a proof of concept well to assess the shale gas / tight gas potential of the EP413 permit area.

The company is currently in the process of conducting an evaluation program on the EP413 permit in the Northern Perth Basin.

In order to complete this assessment, Norwest will be running a hydraulic fracture stimulation program on Arrowsmith-2.

The original start date of 1 September for the hydraulic stimulation program has had to be deferred however, due to a third party referral of this program to the Environmental Protection Authority.

Norwest now has to wait until the EPA has made a decision on whether or not to carry out an assessment of the program.

Final approval is to be provided by the Department of Mines and Petroleum and Norwest is confident that all supporting documentation required by the DMP will demonstrate full compliance to all necessary regulations and guidelines.

The company said it is unable to say how long this overall process will take, however it suggested it could be three months or more before it is concluded.

To date, Norwest said it considers the Arrowsmith‐2 evaluation program to be a success, with core and logging results clearly indicating that all four targets contain significant gas in place, however these still require stimulation for full evaluation.

“Despite this delay we remain positive that the program will proceed,” Norwest Energy chief executive officer Peter Munachen said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“The Arrowsmith project is breaking new ground and as a pioneer there will always be hurdles to overcome.

“After all it was just over a year ago that this shale gas play was merely a thought, and is already on the verge of becoming a reality.

“A delay of circa three months will be considered a thing of the past when, as we expect, the shale gas play in the Basin gets going, with the potential to deliver significant quantities of much‐needed gas to the Western Australian domestic market.

“We just need to be patient. In the meantime Norwest will continue to work closely with both regulatory bodies to ensure this matter is dealt with in a comprehensive and timely manner.”

JETT RINK: Australian energy company Senex Energy, as Operator on behalf of the PEL 111 Snatcher oil field joint venture (Senex 60%) has reached agreement on key commercial terms with Santos, as Operator of the PPL 177 Charo oil field joint venture, for pipeline transportation of crude oil from Snatcher to the Tirrawarra oil and gas field, and then to Moomba.

The agreement provides for the South Australian Cooper Basin (SACB) Parties, comprising Santos, Delhi Petroleum, and Origin Energy Resources to upgrade the proposed four inch diameter Charo to Tirrawarra pipeline to six inch diameter.

The upgrading of the pipeline will enable transportation of the additional crude oil from the PEL 111 joint venture.

The Snatcher oil field will be connected via a new flowline to be constructed between the Snatcher oil field facilities and Charo.

“The agreement with the SACB Parties to increase the capacity of the Charo to Tirrawarra pipeline is a great outcome for all parties as it delivers cost efficiencies and security of production across both the Snatcher and Charo fields,” Senex Energy managing director Ian Davies said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“Investment in infrastructure such as this and the western flank flowline demonstrate Senex’s strong commitment to the continuing growth of the Cooper Basin as a key oil and gas province in Australia.”

The SACB Parties pipeline project comprises the construction of a six inch liquids trunkline with an initial capacity of up to 4,800 barrels of oil per day to enable the transportation of crude oil from Charo to Tirrawarra.

The SACB Parties will own and operate the trunkline.

The PEL 111 joint venture will contribute A$4.1 million for the pipeline upgrade, which will be treated as a prepayment of transportation tariff at an agreed unit rate.

To connect Snatcher oil field crude, Senex will build and operate a flowline from Snatcher oil field to the Charo to Tirrawarra pipeline.

Access to the Charo to Tirrawarra pipeline will provide the PEL 111 joint venture with a flood-proof transportation route to market and will serve to significantly reduce costs as oil production increases.

It is expected that all construction and commissioning work in respect of the Snatcher flowline and tie-in, and the Charo to Tirrawarra trunkline will be completed by March 2012.