East Asia Minerals announces initial gold resource estimate for Sangihe

Vancouver-based mineral exploration company East Asia Minerals Corporation (EAS) announced Wednesday that Caracle Creek International Consulting Inc. (CCIC) has provided an initial resource estimate for its Binebase-Bawone gold deposit at the Sangihe Project, located on Sangihe Island, North Sulawesi.

Based on 79 diamond drill holes and almost 1,700 surface samples, Inferred resources using a 0.25 g/t gold cut-off are estimated at 27.327 million tonnes averaging 0.95 g/t gold and 13.58 g/t silver for 836,718 ounces gold and 11,927,237 ounces silver in near and at surface oxides and sulphides., the Company said.

The oxide and sulphide parts of the deposit are separate. Without applying a cut-off there are 1,032,187 ounces gold and 19,371,490 ounces silver, it said.

The resource estimate is contained within two separate bodies, the Binebase and Bawone, being separated by approximately one kilometre of shallow untested cover. At a 0.25 g/t gold cut-off, 65 percent of the tonnage estimate is contained in the Binebase portion of the deposit. The gold ounces are approximately equally divided between Binebase and Bawone.

Close-spaced drilling is required to upgrade Inferred resources to the Indicated classification, whilst step-out drilling is required to determine the extents of the gold and silver mineralization which remains open at both prospects.

"This resource estimate is encouraging for the Sangihe project, especially because drilling was stopped during the market malaise of 2008 and not re-commenced due to the focus at our flagship Miwah Gold Project," said Michael Hawkins, President and CEO of EAS. "The resource is open for further drilling, and elsewhere on this large property there are several high-grade surface gold zones being primed for initial drilling."

EAS is an Asian-based, Canadian mineral exploration company with gold and copper exploration properties in Indonesia, and uranium exploration properties in Mongolia. In Indonesia the Company has a 70 to 85% interest in six advanced gold and gold-copper properties located in Aceh Province, Sumatra, and Sangihe Island, North Sulawesi. Two of these, the Sangihe (Binebase-Bawone) and Barisan 1 (Abong) gold projects, are being advanced to define NI43-101 compliant resources. (alex)