Galantas Gold upbeat on recent progress at Omagh

Galantas Gold Corporation updated the market on its progress at the Omagh gold mine on Monday, reporting that an access drive on the fourth level had intersected the Kearney vein ahead of schedule.

The AIM-traded firm said the intersection showed “strongly developed” mineralisation, with the north and south faces of the vein having been channel sampled.

It said the average of the two channels was 8.35 grams per tonne of gold, over an average true width of 2.65 metres.

The vein intersection was expected to allow in-vein development, both north and south, on the fourth level.

Development on the fourth level was anticipated to produce increased feed tonnage to the processing plant, which produced a concentrate sold under an off-take contract.

Galantas said development on the third level was continuing southwards, with gold grades within the expected range.

A drivage from the 1072 access had been taken northwards, in-vein, for approximately 40 metres.

Mineralisation beyond the first 20 metres was currently excluded from the geological model, due to the paucity of the data.

The mineralisation was shown to be persistent, and had been followed in an in-vein development.

Two channel samples taken across the face as the drivage was developed at 24.1m and 27.6m into the third level north development reportedly showed a grade of 6.2 grams per tonne of gold and 16.3 grams per tonne of gold, respectively, each with a true width of three metres.

The vein would continue to be followed northwards on the third level, and elevated the potential for additional mineralisation to be added to the resource model if discovered on the adjacent first, second and fourth levels, which had not yet accessed that area.

“To 30 June, approximately 1623 metres of drivage have been completed since underground development commenced,” the board said in its statement.

“The in-vein portion of the development is designed to form lower and upper access to future stoping blocks for production.

“Detailed geological information collected during in-vein development allows the geotechnical design of the various blocks to be optimised and the geological model to be refined.”

A second shift was added to the processing plant operations, as planned, early in the second quarter of 2019.

Galantas said an expansion to three shifts was planned for the third quarter.

“Development continues on or better than target,” said the company’s president and chief executive officer Roland Phelps.

“I look forward to increases in concentrate output that are expected to be the result of the latest development.”

Phelps said the potential for an expansion of the Omagh gold resource remained very high.

“It is the intention to continue the drilling program as cash flow permits.

“The programme, which will be mainly conducted underground, will be focused on targets accessible for mining.”

Routine channel samples were taken as part of geological assessment procedures designed to enhance statistical assessment for mining and are not reported except in the context of a specific event, Galantas Gold explained.

It said the channel samples described followed a standard sampling methodology, as it outlined on 28 August last year.

The analyses reported were by fire assay method, and were carried out in an in-house laboratory, with all widths reported being true widths.