White Cliff Minerals and its joint venture partner T2Gold say final drill results from the 2011 program at the Chanach gold-copper project in the Kyrgyz Republic confirm significant gold mineralization associated with porphyry copper mineralization.
Best intersections include 180 metres @ 0.2% copper and 0.15 grams/tonne gold with several zones of higher grades of copper and gold confirmed within this mineralization, and 16 metres @ 0.65% copper and 0.46 grams/tonne gold. The highest gold assay is 1.13 grams/tonne gold and the peak copper assay is 2.06% copper with 0.35 grams/tonne gold. These results are from drill holes taken from just 10% of the prospective outcropping porphyry.
The companies say the newly discovered copper-gold association is consistent with the outer zoning of a major copper-gold porphyry system. White Cliff’s managing director Todd Hibberd says, “The gold and copper results are quite outstanding considering that they occur on the outer edges of the mineralized system.
“The new intersections continue to demonstrate that Chanach has the potential to develop into a large copper-gold resource. The identification of gold associated with copper in the 2011 drilling program substantially improves the potential economics of the project.”
Todd Hibberd says the partners are now planning a new exploration program to focus on identifying the core of the mineralized system.
The 83sqkm project is 350km west-southwest of the capital city Bishkek, on the Tien Shan Belt which is a highly mineralized zone that extends for more than 2500km from Uzbekistan through to western China.
Major deposits within 100km of Chanach contain up to 93 million ounces of gold and 25 million tonnes of copper. Initial work in 2007-2009 indicated the project may host porphyry and skarn style gold and copper mineralization with several areas containing gold values of up to 40 grams/tonne and copper values of up to 5%.
White Cliff Minerals