Conroy Gold intends to up drilling programme at Clontibret

Irish gold developer Conroy Gold and Natural Resources plans to increase drilling at its Clontibret gold deposit site in County Monaghan.

The Dublin-based firm, which is primarily focused on Ireland and Finland, intends to up the meterage drilled at the site by roughly 70% to over 1,700 metres.

Richard Conroy, the group's chairman, said, "We decided to materially increase the drilling meterage at Clontibret following the recent positive drilling results."

"The board is very enthusiastic that it now has reached the 'drill-ready' phase across its properties with a view to building a multi-million-ounce resource in a first-class mining country," he added.

Back in February, Conroy discovered additional extensive gold zones, with wide mineralised intersections grades of up to 24 grams of gold per tonne.

"The scale of the opportunity at Clontibret and indeed the 60km mineralised gold trend across the Longford Down Massif is quite substantial, therefore, we will be focusing initially on building our mineral resource at Clontibret which currently stands at just over 500,000 ounces," Conroy added.

As of 0920 BST, Conroy shares had lost 3.03% to 16p.