Chaarat Gold releases promising drilling results from Tulkubash

Armenia and Kyrgyz Republic-focussed gold mining company Chaarat Gold Holdings released further drilling results from its ongoing 2019 exploration and drilling programme at its Tulkubash oxide gold development project in the Kyrgyz Republic on Wednesday.

The AIM-traded firm said the project would become its second operating gold mine, and was scheduled to start production in 2021.

It said the primary objective of the drilling programme was to identify shallow mineralisation within and near the current pit designs, with the aim of adding new ounces to the resource and upgrade existing ounces to the reserve confidence level.

The current year's programme formed part of a staged drilling programme, focussed on adding further reserves with the objective of demonstrating a mine life of at least 15 years at the Tulkubash Project.

An additional 9078 metres drilled since the last exploration update on 18 June, with a total of 12,078 metres of drilling, was now completed out of a planned 20,000 metres scheduled for 2019.

Chaarat noted that the most prospective target was still to be drilled.

It said drilling had continued to identify new shallow mineralisation within and adjacent to current pit outlines, including DH19T503, with 10.5 metres at 2.99 grams per tonne of gold starting at the surface; and DH19T511, with 12.0 metres at 1.58 grams per tonne of gold starting at 38.5 metres.

The company also highlighted DH19T512, with 10.5 metres at 1.20 grams per tonne of gold starting at 6.5 meters; and DH19T481, with 28.5 metres at 0.82 grams per tonne of gold starting at 21.0 metres.

Chaarat said roadcut and outcrop mapping and sampling, north east along strike from the current resource boundary, had identified a broad area of more than one gram per tonne of gold in rock chip samples.

It said that surface mineralisation was comparable in grade to that over the main pit zone of Tulkubash, with one million ounces of gold.

One sample - two metres of 19.67 grams per tonne of gold within eight metres of 5.12 grams per tonne - was said to be in a different host rock, and could define a new target area.

The board said drilling was just beginning in that area.

It added that district-scale exploration was continuing to identify new gold targets, supporting the hypothesis that the 24 kilometre Tulkubash Exploration License was an emerging gold district with the potential to host numerous gold deposits.

To date, Chaarat said 77 holes had been completed, totalling 12,078 metres of the 2019 planned 20,000 metre drill programme.

Drilling in 2019 had been focused on adding measured and indicated resources, with potential for conversion into reserves as part of a year-end resource and reserve update.

Additionally, it explained that it had started drilling on an approximately 3,000-metre programme in the Karator and Ishakuldy areas, 1.5 kilometres and five kilometres north east of the current resource limits respectively.

That programme was designed to test drill targets identified along strike, and to validate the district-scale potential of Tulkubash.

“We are encouraged by our results to date this year,” said Chaarat’s senior vice-president of exploration, Dusty Nicol.

“District scale exploration this season is providing us with encouraging results.

The resource identified to date lies within only four kilometres of the company's 24 kilometre-long exploration licence.”

Nicol said that, having completed a number of drill roads and drill pads, the firm was now able to transport drilling equipment into its most prospective target area - the potential strike extension to the northeast of its current resource boundary - where a broad area of at least one gram per tonne gold mineralisation had been identified on surface.

“This is comparable to the surface rock chip geochemistry over the Tulkubash main pit zone.

“Drill testing of this new target has just started, and we await the results.”

The company had also started the initial drill testing of targets at Karator and Ishakuldy this season, Nicol added.

“Additional trenching and road cut sampling in these targets continue to identify areas of hydrothermal alteration and anomalous geochemistry which has already identified numerous additional drill targets.”

He said field work was also being integrated with satellite imagery and geochemical data, to identify multiple new target areas throughout the Company's exploration license.

“Our objective remains to continue developing a database of these geological and geochemical data that will allow the application of advanced data handling techniques to optimise ongoing exploration and discovery.

“The data base being developed will lend itself to the application of artificial intelligence [and] machine learning to identify new drill targets.”