ARX obtains ?encouraging? oil sampling results at Trenggalek

By Ruli Setiawan

ASX-listed Arc Exploration Limited (ARX) reported Tuesday encouraging results from soil sampling recently completed on the Singgahan Prospect located in the southeast corner of the Trenggalek Exploration IUP in East Java.

Singgahan Prospect was previously highlighted by gold-copper drainage anomalies and from targets generated by an airborne magnetics survey, the company said.

Results of the soil sampling have highlighted several geochemical anomalies within the grid area, including a 500-m wide by 1,000-m long coincident gold-copper-molybdenum anomaly underlain by a silica-clay-pyrite altered diorite intrusion in andesitic volcanic and volcaniclastic rocks. The main anomaly is highlighted by +20 ppb gold, +90 ppm copper and +4 ppm molybdenum contours and contains peak results of 0.191 ppm gold, 585 ppm copper and 29 ppm molybdenum.

The Au-Cu-Mo soil anomaly occurs within a prominent NW-trending structural corridor that extends across the IUP and includes several other major gold and copper-gold prospects including Sentul, Buluroto, and Sumber Bening further to the northwest.

Follow-up work is in progress and will include benching, continuous rock sampling and Terraspec work (identifying alteration minerals) to provide further definition of the geochemical anomalies.

Jeffrey Malaihollo, ARX?s Managing Director and CEO, commented: ?These results are encouraging and support our belief in the potential for multiple targets within the Trenggalek Project. Trenggalek lies on the relatively underexplored western end of the segment of magmatic belt that hosts the Tumpangpitu gold-copper deposit in the Tujuh Bukit district further to the east.?

ARX has a joint venture with PT. Sumber Mineral Nusantara (?SMN?), an Indonesian company which holds the Trenggalek Exploration IUP tenement that covers an area of approximately 300 km2 in the Southern Mountains of East Java.

In December 2012, ARX announced that Anglo American had elected to enter into an agreement with the Company and SMN to farm into the Trenggalek Project. Exploration activities at Trenggalek are currently managed by ARX but fully funded by Anglo American.

Work thus far has identified a large high-sulphidation epithermal alteration system at Sumber Bening and other areas that may be linked to porphyry gold-copper targets at depth. The project area lies within the same belt of rocks that hosts major porphyry copper-gold deposits including Tumpangpitu in East Java, and Batu Hijau and Elang on Sumbawa.

Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak