Alba Mineral Resources upbeat on latest drilling at Clogau-St David's

The AIM-traded firm said that since its last update on 2 February, holes LL007 to LL009 had been drilled, bringing the phase 1 running total up to 981.6 metres over nine holes.

It said LL008 intercepted the target structure, including one intercept 1.49 metres thick, being one of the thickest vein intercepts in the entire programme, while LL009 intersected the projected pay shoot at the deepest and westernmost point so far.

Alba now projected the newly-identified vein system as having a strike extent of up to 58 metres, as well as extending 66 metres below the deepest previously-worked zone at the Llechfraith mine area.

While it had originally been planned to drill only three holes from that collar location, the board said the success of the drilling had resulted in it drilling a total of 10 holes from there, allowing the significant dimensions of the lode system to be more clearly defined.

The final hole in the phase, LL010, would test the depth extent of the structure, aiming to intercept the lode at around 100 metres below the existing workings.

Alba said it was in the process of drawing up plans to directly access the newly-identified lode structure at depth, in order to assess and collect ore for future processing and mining.

“All of our drilling to date has been aimed at providing us with critical geological and structural information on the lode systems previously mined at Clogau, so that we can assess if those same structures continue beyond the limits of the previously mined areas,” said chief operating officer Mark Austin.

“To this end, the drilling at Llechfraith has been more successful than we could reasonably have anticipated - the physical attributes of the veins that we have intersected in our drill holes reflect the characteristics of the veins that were successfully mined in the past."

“While we should await the results of the drill core assays before reaching any preliminary conclusions, the significant dimensions of the Llechfraith Lode, as defined by the drilling so far completed, indicate that this could well be a significant contributor to future production at Clogau-St David's.”

At 1450 GMT, shares in Alba Mineral Resources were up 2.92% at 0.34p.