East Asia Minerals completes drilling at Sangihe, puts Miwah under suspension

By Alexander Ginting

Canadian junior exploration firm East Asia Minerals Corporation reported on Tuesday that it has completed a drilling program at its Sangihe gold project on Sangihe Island, North Sulawesi, and put its Miwah project in Aceh under suspension.

At its project on Sangihe Island, East Asia recently completed a 4,600-meter drilling campaign to upgrade the existing mineralization, test extensions to the resource and identify further mineralized zones. Evaluation of the assay results is underway with Mining Associates of Brisbane, Australia. Ausenco, also from Brisbane, is carrying out metallurgical studies to determine processing options.

"We had very positive results from our drilling at Sangihe and look forward to receiving the complete analysis which will provide us with a development roadmap," said Ed Rochette, CEO of East Asia Minerals. "Talks are progressing with a number of parties about establishing a Joint Venture or investing directly into the project and we are confident that we will be able to move forward with a strong partner."

Sangihe is held under a Contract of Work permit, which allows access and development for 26 years. It is located on the island of Sangihe off the northern coast of Sulawesi in Indonesia. Sangihe has an existing NI 43-101 compliant inferred mineral resource of 836,718 ounces of gold and 11,927,237 ounces of silver (27.3 million tons using a 0.25 g/t gold cut-off and an average of 0.95 grams per ton of gold and 13.58 grams per ton of silver).

The company also announced that its local partner has requested that the Miwah Project be placed into suspension. The exploration licenses, or IUPs, at Miwah were effective from November 2012 and extended until November 2014. Additional drilling and completion of an Indonesian Standard Feasibility Study are required before the IUPs expire, at which point the company could seek mining licenses on the properties. By putting the project in suspension, the company maintains its exploration rights and the remaining time on its IUPs while halting all expenditures.

"East Asia believes the remaining time on the IUP extensions is sufficient to complete the required work at Miwah. A suspension notice has now been filed with the Indonesian Ministry of Mines. While our Miwah project is on hold, management is continuing to work with and is making progress with all levels of government to change the forestry classification there. Our opinion is that our land position has been an active exploration site for over 20 years and should not have been designated as protected forest," stated Rochette.

The company?s property at Miwah is an epithermal gold target located on the northern tip of Sumatra Island in the province of Aceh in Indonesia and consists of about 2,000 hectares within the 30,000 hectares of the Miwah IUPs. The Company filed an NI 43-101 technical report on May 2011 which identified a gold resource at Miwah of approximately 3.1 million ounces (103.9 million tons using a cut-off of 0.2 grams per ton and an average grade of 0.94 grams per ton of gold).

Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak