MONGOLIA - New zones identified at Chandman

Canadian-based Altan Rio Minerals has completed reconnaissance drilling at the KY porphyry intrusion targets of its Chandman Copper-Gold Project in western Mongolia. The company is also finalizing a deal with Gallant Minerals to take on ownership of all five tenements in its Khovd province project.

The 2011 drill program was designed to update 17 diamond drill holes completed in 2009-2010. The latest drilling tested the main higher chargeability portions of the IP anomalies in 13 holes for a total of 7814 metres. The other aims of the project were to attempt 300 metre-wide offsets in a previously reported intersection and test combined IP and geochemical anomalies exceeding 2km in length along the Del and Khuush zones.

It was part of the Chandman-Yol regional exploration project which aimed to continue geophysical and geochemical survey coverage of the large license area and identify new target zones for future drill campaigns.

Altan Rio says at least three new target zones of gold and copper mineralization were identified, and at least seven large untested drill target zones have been delineated and will be the focus of 2012 and 2013 exploration campaigns.

The Chandman-Yol Project is in mountainous basin and range country about 1050km west of the capital Ulaanbaatar. It consists of nine tenements, all of which are owned by Altan Rio, with the five Chandman tenements being subject to a 2.5% net smelter return. Copper, gold, arsenic, molybdenum, silver, zinc and lead mineralization was discovered at Chandman in 2005 in broad zones of intense quartz-sericite-sulfide alteration.

Altan Rio has invested about US$5 million to date on exploration work including geophysical surveys, geochemistry, sampling, trenching and diamond drilling. The main copper-gold porphyry target consists of a broad zone of highly anomalous copper and gold located in a magnetic low, 3km-long and 1km-wide, potentially representing a large sulphidized body at depth.

The company is also exploring Mongolian licence holdings across more than 153,310 hectares, which are believed to contain significant zones of newly identified gold and copper mineralization in largely unexplored territory.

www.altanrio.com