Noricum Gold begins new Georgia drill programme

Noricum Gold was hoping to strike it lucky on Thursday, as it announced the start of a new drilling programme in the Caucasian region.

The Europe-focused base and precious metals exploration and development company confirmed it had commenced a 19-hold diamond drill programme at Kvemo Bolnisi.

Kvemo Bolnisi is one of the two primary targets at the 861 square kilometre Bolnisi Project in the Republic of Georgia.

In a statement, Noricum Gold said it was tartgeting outcropping shallow secondary quartzile high grade gold mineralisation, in an area that had been identified as having the potential to be 'fast-tracked' into production.

The presence of significant gold mineralisation had already been identified at Kvemo Bolnisi through previously announced testing results.

"Both our initial targets - Kvemo Bolnisi and Tsitel Sopeli - have been prioritised due to the strong potential they demonstrate to deliver production in the near term, and this drill programme to delineate a JORC resource is a real step towards evaluating the commerciality of this exciting opportunity further", said CEO Greg Kuenzel.

"Noricum's re-assaying and resource development work had identified this area of shallow, high-grade gold mineralisation and we will now test the continuity between historic diamond drilling and trenching through a drill programme, which will provisionally consist of 19 holes", he added.

At 09:30 GMT on Thursday, shares in Noricum Gold were up 4.76% to 0.11p.