logo-loader

Condor Resource expected to grow La India resource significantly with drill-bit

Published: 09:50 09 May 2011 EDT

no_picture_pai

Condor Resources (LON:CNR) will significantly grow its gold resources in the La India district on the back of the 5,000 metres of drilling planned for 2011, according to Ambrian Capital analyst Duncan Hughes.

In a note to clients the analyst, who repeated a ‘speculative buy’ recommendation, said he expects assay results and resource upgrades to act as catalysts for share price growth. 

This morning Condor released the first batch of drill results from the La India project.

Assays from the first 1,000 metres of drilling at the Nicaraguan project have unearthed extensions to two of the four gold veins that have been tested so far.

Up until recently work on La India has been confined to the desktop, with the group converting a historic Russia resource estimate to current western standards. So far it has defined 1.02 million ounces of gold to JORC standards.

This is the junior explorer’s first drill programme and the first twelve holes - split between the Constancia, Tatiana, Guapinol and America veins -  have found a new areas if high grade gold mineralisation.

Specifically it found a new high grade gold shoot at Constancia and it increased the strike length and depth continuity of a high grade shoot at Tatiana.

The focus is now expected to switch to the La India veins, which according to Condor have the largest continuous resource in the district - at around 400,000 ounces they comprise a the bulk of the project’s current JORC resource.

“The results from the Constancia vein are encouraging,” Ambrian’s Hughes said. “The nature of this mineralisation is a series of high grade plunging shoots within a wider low grade envelope. The high grade shoots are often small and hard to intersect in drilling, but extremely profitable if defined and mined. 

“Consequently, intersecting an additional 300 metres of mineralised envelope and one of these shoots early on in the programme is significant.” 

The analyst also stressed that the high grade extension of the Tatiana vein will grow the area’s resource. 

Hughes added: “We expect further drilling into (the Tatiana) high grade shoot later this quarter.

“The holes into the Guapinol and America Vein were disappointing but have better defined the style and extent of the mineralisation in this area.”

In this morning’s statement Condor also highlighted that a second diamond-core drill rig has now joined the campaign, starting on the San Lucas-Caoulin vein, which has not been drilled before although sampling has confirmed mineralisation along a 1,500 metre strike length.

The current programme will test the structure along the entire strike length and at depth. Condor hopes this will significantly enlarge the veins existing 24,000 ounce resource by bringing all the trench data into the resource block and extending the resource to depth.

It also highlighted that one of the rigs will move onto the La India group of veins. Here it will test strike extensions of the main La India Vein as well as the conjoined veins – known as Arizona, Teresa and Agua Caliente – which already contain inferred resources. Drilling will also test for the bulk mining potential on other un-named veins.

Later this year Condor plans to carry out another phase of drill work, where it will drill deep beneath the the historically mined area.

Chairman Mark Child told investors that Condor is not planning to hire SRK Consulting for another resource upgrade until 5,000 metres of drilling have been completed.

In total Condor plans to drill 25,000 metres of drilling, supported by a recent £3 million equity funding from Macquarie Bank. This extensive programme aims to double the current 1.02 million ounce JORC resource.

"The first 1,000 metres of drilling on La India Project has taken slightly longer than expected as the drill rig has moved between 4 locations as the company's geologists test 4 separate veins with a view to focusing on veins that show the most promise,” Child said. 

“It is therefore highly encouraging that a drill hole on the Constancia Vein has returned an intercept of 1.4 metres at 17.6 gold per tonne (g/t) gold and that a drill hole on the Tatiana Vein has returned a drill intercept of 0.8 metres at 10.8g/t gold increasing the strike length of mineralisation on the former by 300 metres and the latter by 100 metres. 

“An increase in the strike length of mineralisation by drilling and trenching should increase the length of the resource by a similar amount.”

ARway.ai announces multiple new SaaS developer contracts in both the United...

ARway.ai (CSE:ARWY, OTCQB:ARWYF) Chief Executive Officer Evan Gappelberg joined Steve Darling from Proactive to announce multiple new SaaS developer sign-ups for its augmented reality experience platform, focusing on AR indoor navigation. These partnerships represent significant milestones in...

40 minutes ago