Alba Mineral Resources plc reported “large” amounts of visible sulphide mineralisation in blasted rocks, indicating associated gold mineralisation, at its Clogau-St David’s gold mine.
BULK SAMPLE
The company has also noted visible gold within the blasted ore.
Drilling and blasting at level 5 on the Llechfraith target continues round the clock, with a team of up to seven people completing a total 565 man-days since pre-blasting operations began in early August.
Alba has to date removed around 120 tonnes of ore, comprised of historic and newly
blasted material, to the surface for processing.
Test batches of blasted ore are soon to undergo processing.
“The presence of significant amounts of visible sulphides in the blasted rock is very encouraging, as is the identification of visible gold, ” said executive chairman George Frangeskides.
The company added that the large volume of historic ore and insufficient air pressure to the rock drills resulted in slower progress in blasting than expected.
Alba has used a larger compressor to rectify the air pressure and continues to investigate plant improvements to process ore faster as well as the entire bulk sample.
The underground pump system coped with the “huge” increase in rain caused by Storm Darragh, while weekend repairs to the partly washed away main access road allowed uninterrupted operations.
SWEDEN
Elsewhere in its company’s portfolio, Alba has completed site visits to its Finnsbo and Norrby optioned projects in Sweden.
Sampling of a “highly interesting” Finnsbo outcrop returned anomalous results for gold and rare earth elements, including grades of >10 g/t gold and 2.36% total rare earth oxide.
The company is awaiting a report and assays from samples collected during a site visit at its gold licences in Tanzania.