Sorby drilling remains consistent for Kimberley Metals

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: Kimberley Metals has received the results from 50 recently-completed drill holes from the Sorby Hills project, located near Kununurra in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia.

The drill holes form part of a major reverse circulation drilling program conducted by the company during September and October of this year, and follow on from the high-grade results it had announced to the market in September.

Kimberley Metals claims the Sorby Hills project to be the largest undeveloped silver-lead deposit at open cut depth in Australia.

The project is jointly owned by Kimberley Metals (75%) and China’s largest lead and silver smelter, Henan Yuguang Gold and Lead Company (25%).

The drilling program was designed to support the Joint Venture’s strategic plan to commence a 500,000 tonnes per annum open cut mining operation from 2013 and has predominantly targeted the shallow higher grade D-E Deposit (formerly known as D & E Pods).

So far the company has received results for 78 of the 109 holes that were drilled during the recent program.

Kimberely Metals said the latest results are consistent with previously announced drill holes.

The results have returned some high-grade intersections including but not limited to:

25 metres at 8.4 per cent lead and 85 grams per tonne silver;

11m at 14.2 per cent lead and 116 g/t silver; and

11m at 7.8 per cent lead and 197 g/t silver.

Kimberley Metals said the new results have provided the Joint Venture with further confidence that the drilling program will lead to a significant conversion of Inferred Resources to the Indicated Resource category and an upgrade in metal content for the D-E Deposit.

It will be commencing work on the new Resource Estimate as soon as the remaining results have been received and the estimate is anticipated to be completed by early December 2011.

The company said the D-E Deposit remains open down dip to the east in most areas, with the recent results suggesting it is likely to merge along strike to the north with the F Deposit.

The Joint Venture’s strategy remains to focus on shallow high grade mineralisation (less than70m deep) amenable to low cost open pit mining operations in C-DE deposits.

“These latest results give added emphasis to the potential for a low cost, high margin open cut operation to be established at Sorby Hills from 2013,”Kimberley Metals executive chairman Jim Wall said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.