East Asia Minerals commences drilling at Sangihe Island project
Friday, December 7 2012 - 01:58 AM WIB
East Asia Minerals Corporation said that it has commenced drilling on phase one of the 4,600 meter drill program at Sangihe Island on the Bawone, Binebase sites, plus the highly prospective Taware Valley / Sedi site.
This is execution of the program that was previously announced in October to follow up on phase one and phase two drilling programs completed in previous years at the Binebase and Bawone zones.
The company said in a statement received Friday the exploration program will be comprised of a total of 4,600 meters of drilling.
The program will be subdivided in the following manner: Binebase mineralization zone extension will consist of 12 holes totaling 1,800 meters; Bawone mineralization zone extension will consist of 12 holes totaling 1,800 meters; Kupa & Taware scout holes will consist of 8 holes totaling 1,000 meters. The estimated total cost for the drilling and assaying program is $2.8 million, the company said.
Frank Rocca, Vice President of Exploration with East Asia Minerals stated: "Based upon recent evaluation of geomagnetics and interpretation of previous drilling results, we are very enthused that these initiatives will lead to extension of the existing Binebase & Bawone ore zones plus exploration of the highly prospective Taware / Sedi area".
There are three objectives for the proposed drilling program to be undertaken on Sangihe Island in 2012. The first objective is to increase the Inferred Resource ounces at the Binebase mineralized zones and define the boundaries of the mineralized zone. This may also convert some of the Inferred Resources to Indicated Resources.
The second objective is to define resource extensions along strike of the Bawone mineralized zone towards Salurang, and to increase the tonnage of the Inferred Resource.
The final objective of the exploration program is to drill scouting holes in the Kupa and Taware valleys. The scouting holes will target quartz veins in both valleys that have returned high grade assay values in grab and channel samples taken in previous years, East Asia Minerals explained.
The Sangihe Gold-Copper Project is located on the island of Sangihe off the northern coast of Sulawesi and has an existing National Instrument 43-101 compliant Inferred Mineral Resource of 27.3 million tons averaging 0.95 g/t gold and 13.58 g/t silver for 836,718 ounces gold and 11,927,237 ounces Silver (using a 0.25 g/t gold cut-off) in near and at surface oxides and sulphides.
The resource estimate is contained within two separate bodies, the Binebase and Bawone, being separated by approximately one kilometer 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.
Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak