Finders: Lerokis drilling extends high grade zones

ASX-listed Finders Resources Limited said on Tuesday that pre-development drilling activities at Lerokis within the Wetar Copper Project in Maluku Barat Daya, Maluku Province, Indonesia, confirmed the existence of contiguous, high grade zones previously only defined by single or isolated drill hole intercepts.

Finders said in a statement that a 59-hole program of reverse circulation (RC) and diamond drilling (for a total of 2,931 meters) was recently completed into the more complex zones of the Zone 5 and Zone 1S areas at Lerokis to better define pre-development mineralized envelopes for mine design purposes, obtain additional samples for metallurgical column leach testing, ?sterilize? areas for infrastructure locations and to provide additional support to final open pit wall design assumptions.

An RC drilling program consisting of 48 holes (for 2,412m) was designed to achieve a number of objectives:
? to extend the resource based on a revised geological interpretation,
? to reconfirm and potentially revise resource and reserve shells,
? to provide sample for further metallurgical and geotechnical modelling,
? to provide more precise geological interpretation throughout the resource.

The company said the program has successfully achieved all of those objectives, with 26 of these holes further evaluating known areas of complex sulphide mineralization in Zones 5 and 1S, 8 holes tested previously identified shallow sulphide mineralization in Zone 1C and a further 14 sterilization holes were drilled into previously untested areas for mine infrastructure.

Three vertical diamond core holes (for 163.6m) were also completed to provide sulphide material for optimized column leach metallurgical testwork to ensure that the proposed mining and processing activities provide an optimum blend of mineralization types to maximize copper recovery from the heap leach pads.

The drill hole results that form the basis of this announcement purposely targeted ?outlier? high grade intersections to ensure that they did not unduly influence the contained metal modelled in that part of the deposit, while at the same time resolving areas of geometric complexity on the flanks of the massive sulphide mounds.

?The results received to date have successfully confirmed the existence of contiguous, high grade zones previously only defined by single or isolated drill hole intercepts,? Finders said.

?There remains little doubt that these results will incrementally increase the volume of mineralized material and increase the contained metal in the high grade zones. This will be quantified in coming months as the pre-mining Mineral Resource estimate for Lerokis is finalized,? the company added.

The Wetar Copper Project comprises the development, open pit mining and processing of the high-grade sulphide deposits at Kali Kuning and Lerokis located within 3 kilometers of the coast on Wetar Island.

Managing Director Barry Cahill commented: ?These impressive results were from the Lerokis pre-development drilling program required to finalize the pre-mining Mineral Resource and Ore Reserve estimate for the Company?s second open pit mine at Wetar. The high grade assay results indicate good potential for increasing the contained copper metal above that previously reported for the deposit. Mine development and infrastructure planning for Lerokis is now at an advanced stage.?

Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak