Ariana Resources PLC Ariana Resources Plc : Targets At Salinbas Gold Project
January 18 2017 - 2:00AM
UK Regulatory
TIDMAAU
18 January 2017
AIM: AAU
SIGNIFICANT TARGETS AT SALINBAS GOLD PROJECT
Ariana Resources plc ("Ariana" or "the Company"), the gold exploration
and development company operating in Turkey, is pleased to announce an
update on the Salinbas Gold Project ("Salinbas" or "the Project").
Highlights:
-- Thirty-seven target areas are defined within the Salinbas Project
following a thorough analysis of all previous data, with several areas
prioritised for additional work.
-- Highly significant drill intercepts that warrant follow-up include 125m @
2.44 g/t Au + 0.3% Cu and 34.5m @ 1.75 g/t Au + 6.13 g/t Ag and 164m @
0.16 g/t Au + 0.3% Cu + 120 ppm Mo in the Ardala area.
-- Numerous significant rock-chip and soil geochemical anomalies
(principally Au, Ag, Cu, Mo) which have not been drill-tested, also
require follow-up.
-- Project area includes targets developed around the Salinbas Au-Ag deposit,
the Ardala Cu-Au-Mo porphyry and the Hizarliyayla Au-Ag system among
several other prospects.
-- Company planning to conduct exploration along the Hot Gold Corridor
during 2017 to establish the continuity of mineralisation from
Salinbas-Ardala through to Hizarliyayla (Figure 1).
Dr. Kerim Sener, Managing Director, commented:
"The Salinbas Project, although already containing a JORC resource of
c.1Moz gold equivalent, remains only partially explored. There are
several drilling results, rock-chip, soil and geophysical and geological
targets that have not yet been tested to any significant degree. These
targets are mainly defined within and around the Salinbas and Ardala
resource areas but several additional targets lie elsewhere within the
16km long Hot Gold Corridor.
Beyond the main Salinbas deposit, several well defined target areas at
Ardala South East and South West, Hizarliyayla and Incesu South, among
others, will become the focus of generative soil and rock-chip sampling
work during 2017. In particular, we are excited by the possibility that
the mineralised part of the Ardala Porphyry extends for a further 1km to
the south and represents a style of mineralisation that is enriched in
molybdenum. We are also particularly encouraged by several significant
rock-chip and soil anomalies encountered in the Hizarliyayla area, which
lies about 8km to the north of Hot Maden and along the same geological
trend.
We will be providing further updates on the Project during the months
ahead and our teams are looking forward to continuing the exploration
within an area that, along with Hot Maden, is proving to be an
exceptionally prospective goldfield with multi-million ounce potential."
This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of
Article 7 of EU Regulation 596/2014.
Figure 1: Map of the Salinbas project area showing the location of major
prospects, related alteration and mapped intrusions. Most of the gold
prospects, including Salinbas, lie within the Hot Gold Corridor.
Link: http://hugin.info/138153/R/2071877/778619.pdf
Target Generation
A comprehensive review of geochemical (Figure 2), geophysical (Figure 3)
and geological data pertaining to the Project has been completed by the
Company and its consultants since the acquisition from Eldorado Gold.
This review has identified 37 target areas in total with several
warranting comprehensive follow-up work (Table 1). A select number of
these targets will be assessed further in advance of the exploration
field season and, where possible, new drilling permissions will be
sought in order that some of these targets may be drilled during 2017.
The Company is planning a programme of work to conduct during 2017 that
will refine these target areas further and better determine the future
exploration potential of the Project.
Table 1: A selection of targets generated for follow-up during 2017, in
alphabetical order. Several targets have not been drill-tested and
require comprehensive follow-up through soil geochemical methods before
they can be refined ahead of drilling.
Prospect Peak Peak Soil Anomaly Best Drill Intercept
Name Rock-Chip
Ardala 7.02 g/t Au n/a 125m @ 2.44 g/t Au + 0.3% Cu
Carapace 13.9 g/t Ag inc. 30m @ 7.5 g/t Au + 0.3% Cu
1.39% Cu
0.17% Mo
Ardala South 2.35 g/t Au n/a 18.5m @ 1.19 g/t Au + 16 g/t Ag + 0.6% Cu;
West 272 g/t Ag 34.5m @ 1.75 g/t Au + 6.13 g/t Ag;
3.94% Cu 18.2m @ 2.2 g/t Au + 26 g/t Ag + 0.2% Cu.
1.32% Pb
4.25% Zn
Ardala South n/a 361 ppb Au n/a
East 414 ppm Cu
14.6 ppm Mo
4.4 ppm Te
Hizarliyayla 1.25 g/t Au 664 ppb, 602 ppb, 525 ppb Au n/a
+ 37.3 g/t 58 ppm Ag
Ag
Incesu South n/a 230 ppb Au 164m @ 0.16 g/t Au + 0.3 % Cu + 120 ppm Mo + 0.38
Porphyry 41 ppm Mo ppm Re
430 ppm Cu
2.34 ppm Te
Okumuslar 0.95 g/t Au n/a n/a
50 ppm Mo
49 ppm Sb
Salinbas 0.72 g/t Au n/a n/a
East 3.9 g/t Ag
Salinbas 0.38 g/t Au n/a 2.5m @ 4.1 g/t Au + 4.0 g/t Ag + 118 ppm Mo
South 41 ppm Mo
Figure 2: Map of the Salinbas Project area, showing the extent of
current geochemical anomalies for gold and silver in addition to the
area not yet tested by geochemistry that shows potential for the
continuation of mineralisation along the Hot Gold Corridor.
Link: http://hugin.info/138153/R/2071877/778620.pdf
Figure 3: Map of the Salinbas Project area, showing the extent of
current geophysical data coverage (magnetics) along the Hot Gold
Corridor. A significant area has not yet been tested with any form of
geophysics and this will be a priority for future work.
Link: http://hugin.info/138153/R/2071877/778621.pdf
Salinbas Project
The Salinbas Project is located in the Pontide Metallogenic Province in
northeastern Turkey and lies approximately 80km southeast of the coastal
city of Hopa and 20km east of Artvin. The project comprises three
notable prospects: Salinbas, Ardala and Hizarliyayla (Figure 1). The
project comprises three licences which are owned 100% by the operating
subsidiary, Pontid Madencilik San. ve Tic. Ltd. Two of the licences are
in process at the General Directorate of Mining Affairs for conversion
to operational status during 2017.
Salinbas is the most notable of the prospect areas, having been
identified in 2009 following rock-chip sampling and trenching, which
included 33m at 9.6 g/t Au and 46m at 8.3 g/t Au. Follow-up drilling
identified a gently dipping mineralised body emplaced along a thrust
zone to the east of a series of breccia pipes and the main body of the
Ardala Cu-Au-Mo porphyry. The best intercepts in initial shallow
drilling included 9.5m @ 6.48 g/t Au + 39.4 g/t Ag, 11.3m @ 4.98 g/t Au
+ 42.8 g/t Ag and 25m @ 3.34 g/t Au + 7.9 g/t Ag. Best intercepts from
further drilling included 31.10m @ 1.38g/t Au, 17.90m @ 2.09 g/t Au and
9.20m @ 2.25 g/t Au, with most mineralised intercepts obtained from less
than 70m below surface. A total of 11,709m drilling for 86 drill holes
has been completed on Salinbas to date and has defined a tabular
resource (Table 1) which dips towards the east at 25 degrees.
Substantial vertical relief exists between the top of the mineralisation
at Salinbas Peak (1,320m above sea level) to the lower limits of the
current resource (780m above sea level) in the vicinity of the Ardala
porphyry.
Table 2: Classified JORC 2012 Mineral Resource estimate for Salinbas
(dated 1 April 2015). The resource was modelled on the basis of geology
and a lower cut-off of 0.5 g/t Au. Numbers may not sum due to rounding.
JORC Grade Au Grade Ag
Classification Tonnage (Mt) (g/t) (g/t) Ounces Au Ounces Ag
Indicated 2.29 2.11 11.9 155,500 877,700
Inferred 7.67 2.00 9.7 493,300 2,396,400
TOTAL 9.96 2.03 10.2 648,900 3,274,200
Limited exploration drilling between Salinbas and the Ardala porphyry to
the east has also been conducted. Highly encouraging results from these
holes confirmed the need for further exploration in this area and
suggest the continuity of mineralisation from the Ardala porphyry in the
valley floor to the Salinbas system on the ridge, representing a
vertical distance of 675m and a horizontal distance of close to 2km.
The best recent intercepts from drilling in the area connecting the
Salinbas system to the Ardala system include 81.5m @ 1.28 g/t Au + 10.5
g/t Ag, 34.5m @ 2.21 g/t Au + 10.7 g/t Ag and 18.2m @ 2.20 g/t Au + 25.6
g/t Ag. Further establishing the links between these two areas will be
an important objective for future drilling programmes.
A scoping study focused on Salinbas and completed in 2015 (see
announcement on 1 April 2015), demonstrated potential for the project to
yield strong financial returns, with NPV (8%) at US$108M, pre-tax IRR of
28%, and payback secured within approximately 3.3 years over the Life of
Mine ("LoM") at a gold price of US$1,250/oz. This demonstrates that a
potentially viable resource development opportunity already exists at
Salinbas and that future exploration work will probably reinforce this
view.
The nearby Ardala area hosts a porphyry copper-gold (plus molybdenum)
mineralised system associated with a series of nested quartz-diorite
intrusions of Eocene age within an Upper Cretaceous volcano-sedimentary
sequence. Geological mapping, soil, rock-chip and drill sample data, and
a ground magnetic survey outlined the mineralised porphyry and in 2013 a
JORC Mineral Resource was established (Table 2). Exposed parts of the
porphyry have dimensions of 600 x 700m and interpretation of magnetic
data suggests further lateral continuity beneath limestone units over an
area of 1,000m x 1,000m in extent. Previous exploration also focused
specifically on the mineralised intrusions, while surrounding
gold-bearing skarns (peak grade 5.16 g/t Au and 0.2% Cu in rock-chips)
and related disseminated mineralisation in the host-rocks remain largely
untested. The best intercepts from recent drilling in the Ardala area
include 119.5m @ 0.71g/t Au + 0.21% Cu + 0.01% Mo, 236.3m @ 0.34 g/t Au
+ 0.06% Cu and 122.9m @ 0.58 g/t Au + 0.05% Cu, which tested an area of
mineralised porphyry and immediately adjacent limestone. Deeper (>150m)
high-grade intercepts outside of the porphyry at Ardala include 4.2m @
6.74 g/t Au, 2.8m @ 3.34 g/t Au + 38.96 g/t Ag + 2.56% Zn, 2.0m @ 5.29
g/t Au + 13.5 g/t Ag, indicating the potential for other styles of
higher grade mineralisation sitting adjacent to the porphyry.
Table 3: Classified JORC 2004 Mineral Resource estimate for Ardala
(dated 13 April 2013). Separate resource domains were established for
the Au, Cu and Mo components of the Ardala porphyry. There is a 95%
coincidence of the Au and Cu domains, and a 40-50% coincidence of the Au
and Mo domains.
Tonnage
JORC Classification (Mt) Grade (ppm) Tonnes Metal Ounces Metal Element
Inferred 4.66 2,175 10,000 Cu
18.00 136 2,400 Mo
16.27 0.60 323,000 Au
Contacts:
Ariana Resources plc Tel: +44 (0) 20 7407 3616
Michael de Villiers, Chairman
Kerim Sener, Managing Director
Beaumont Cornish Limited Tel: +44 (0) 20 7628 3396
Roland Cornish / Felicity Geidt
Beaufort Securities Limited Tel: +44 (0) 20 7382 8300
Jon Belliss
Panmure Gordon (UK) Limited Tel: +44 (0) 20 7886 2500
Adam James / Tom Salvesen
Editors' Note:
Dr Kerim Sener, BSc (Hons), MSc, PhD, is the Managing Director of Ariana
Resources plc. A graduate of the University of Southampton in Geology,
he also holds a Master's degree from the Royal School of Mines (Imperial
College, London) in Mineral Exploration and a doctorate from the
University of Western Australia. He is a Fellow of The Geological
Society of London and has worked in geological research and mineral
consultancy in Africa, Australia and Europe. He has read and approved
the technical disclosure in this regulatory announcement.
About Ariana Resources
Ariana is an exploration and development company focused on epithermal
gold-silver and porphyry copper-gold deposits in Turkey. The Company is
developing a portfolio of prospective licences originally selected on
the basis of its in-house geological and remote-sensing database.
The Company's flagship assets are its Kiziltepe and Tavsan gold projects
which form the Red Rabbit Gold Project. Both contain a series of
prospects, within two prolific mineralised districts in the Western
Anatolian Volcanic and Extensional (WAVE) Province in western Turkey.
This Province hosts the largest operating gold mines in Turkey and
remains highly prospective for new porphyry and epithermal deposits.
These core projects, which are separated by a distance of 75km, form
part of a 50:50 Joint Venture with Proccea Construction Co. The
Kiziltepe Sector of the Red Rabbit Project is fully-permitted and is
currently in construction. The total resource inventory at the Red
Rabbit Project and wider project area stands at c. 525,000 ounces of
gold equivalent. At Kiziltepe a Net Smelter Return ("NSR") royalty of
up to 2.5% on future production is payable to Franco-Nevada Corporation.
At Tavsan an NSR royalty of up to 2% on future production is payable to
Sandstorm Gold.
In north-eastern Turkey, Ariana owns 100% of the Salinbas Gold Project,
comprising the Salinbas gold-silver deposit and the Ardala
copper-gold-molybdenum porphyry among other prospects. The total
resource inventory of the Salinbas project area is c. 1 million ounces
of gold equivalent. A NSR royalty of up to 2% on future production is
payable to Eldorado Gold Corporation.
Beaufort Securities Limited and Panmure Gordon (UK) Limited are joint
brokers to the Company and Beaumont Cornish Limited is the Company's
Nominated Adviser.
For further information on Ariana you are invited to visit the Company's
website at www.arianaresources.com.
Glossary of Technical Terms:
"Ag" the chemical symbol for silver;
"Au" the chemical symbol for gold;
"Cu" the chemical symbol for copper;
"g/t" grams per tonne;
"Indicated resource" a part of a mineral resource for which tonnage,
densities, shape, physical characteristics, grade and mineral content
can be estimated with a reasonable level of confidence. It is based on
exploration, sampling and testing information gathered through
appropriate techniques from locations such as outcrops, trenches, pits,
workings and drill holes. The locations are too widely or
inappropriately spaced to confirm geological and/or grade continuity but
are spaced closely enough for continuity to be assumed;
"Inferred resource" a part of a mineral resource for which tonnage,
grade and mineral content can be estimated with a low level of
confidence. It is inferred from geological evidence and has assumed, but
not verified, geological and/or grade continuity. It is based on
information gathered through appropriate techniques from locations such
as outcrops, trenches, pits, workings and drill holes that may be
limited or of uncertain quality and reliability;
"IRR" Internal Rate of Return;
"JORC" the Joint Ore Reserves Committee;
"m" Metres;
"M" million;
"Mo" the chemical symbol for molybdenum;
"Mt" million tonnes;
"NPV" Net Present Value;
"oz" Ounces;
"Pb" the chemical symbol for lead;
"ppb" parts per billion;
"ppm" parts per million;
"Re" the chemical symbol for rhenium;
"Sb" the chemical symbol for antimony;
"Te" the chemical symbol for tellurium;
"Zn" the chemical symbol for zinc.
Ends
Figure 1: http://hugin.info/138153/R/2071877/778619.pdf
Figure 3: http://hugin.info/138153/R/2071877/778621.pdf
Figure 2: http://hugin.info/138153/R/2071877/778620.pdf
This announcement is distributed by Nasdaq Corporate Solutions on behalf
of Nasdaq Corporate Solutions clients.
The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely
responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information
contained therein.
Source: Ariana Resources plc via Globenewswire
http://www.arianaresources.com/s/Home.asp
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 18, 2017 02:00 ET (07:00 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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