Alba Mineral Resources plc said it had made good progress with a range of works at Clogau-St David’s gold mine in the south of Snowdonia National Park.
The junior miner has drilled four holes covering a total of 252 metres and received permission to continue underground drilling until the end of October 2020.
Drilling at the site is currently paused but will resume during the first half of October for two to three weeks.
The company expects to complete 400 to 450 metres of drilling in total by the end of this underground drilling campaign.
Alba has also appointed Matt Durbin Associates (MDA) to refurbish circa 600 metres of existing pipework within Llechfraith adit to provide pressurised air for drilling and future development.
Alongside the drilling campaign, the company is carrying out bulk sampling and four bulk samples with a total of 12 tonnes of material have so far been collected.
Alba has notified Snowdonia National Park Authority of its diamond drill campaign of up to 1,500 metres of the planned 5,000 metres, and surface drilling programme for areas difficult or dangerous to reach from underground.
The drill programme targets mineralisation below the existing mine workings at the Llechfraith mine area, so testing the continuation of mineralisation at depth. The company hopes to begin during the first half of November 2020.
And a gold concentrator and impact crusher has been ordered from APT in South Africa needed to complete the company’s pilot processing plant.
The impact crusher is capable of processing three tonnes per hour and a gold concentrator capable of processing 1.5 tonnes per hour.
Alba expects the pilot plant to be fully operational during the first quarter of 2020, subject to approvals and no additional delays in shipment of the ordered items.
Executive chairman George Frangeskides said that all other work, including underground 3D scanning, surface trenching of the Dolgellau Gold Belt, sampling of the historical waste dump at Clogau, and dewatering of the Lower Llechfraith mine area was progressing well.
“Our programme of works at Clogau-St David’s is multi-faceted, so as well as drilling and bulk sampling we are pushing forward our plans to dewater the Llechfraith mine section, one of our most promising targets, to sample the historical waste tip for gold and to carry out surface trenching and sampling of the first of the many regional gold targets which have been identified by our team.”
Alba Mineral Resources’ other exploration assets include a cluster of sites in Greenland: Amitsoq – graphite (90%), Inglefield – copper, cobalt, gold (100%), Melville Bay – iron ore (51%), TBS – ilmenite (100%); in Ireland: Limerick – zinc, lead (100%); and onshore oil investments in Brockham (5%) and Horse Hill (11.765%) in Surrey.