ECR Minerals buoyed by high grade gold assays from Australian project

ECR Minerals' shares jumped on Tuesday after the company announced the receipt of high grade gold assays from the recently completed rock chip sampling programme at the Timor Gold Project in Victoria, Australia.

Highlights from the AIM traded company's results included 22.6 grams per tonne of quartz vein material from the Shaw’s Reef main shaft waste dump, and 26.3 grams per tonne from the Anglo-Saxon main shaft, with both samples taken from the remnants of old underground operations that were active in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Craig Brown, chief executive of ECR, said: "Furthermore, the reconnaissance has discovered the Brilliant/Northumbria reef and its extensive gold workings, including an old open cut. This prospect area extends over a length of approximately 500m and is up to 80m wide and assays from 13 samples indicate widespread low-grade gold mineralisation."

Works at the site resulted in 84 rock samples being collected from 19 prospects, with 47 of these samples, from 14 separate prospects, found to be mineralised at more than 0.1 grammes of gold per tonne of ore.

The company said that number of the prospects have consistently shown anomalous gold grades indicating that the ore does not appear to be particularly nuggetty and that reliable grades can be expected, meaning that further sampling is required to establish the extent of the mineralisation prior to drilling.

The company said it is now reviewing the data collected to determine the next step for the Timor Project, telling investors that further information will follow as each step of the exploration programme is implemented and the results interpreted.

ECR Minerals' shares were up 9.19% at 1.01p at 1234 BST.