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LONDON (Alliance News) - Strategic Minerals PLC said Monday the assay results from the diamond drill programme at the Paltridge North and Rosmann East deposits at the Mountain of Light project in South Australia delivered "better than expected results".
Strategic Minerals said eight of the 10 holes intersected "significant" copper mineralisation, including malachite, azurite, chalcocite and native copper.
The miner said six of the 10 holes have an intersection average of 1.34%, "significantly" greater than the resource average of 0.81%.
Significant intersections include 26.2 metres at 1.14% copper, including 11.2 metres at 1.85% copper from drill hole PND18-04. Hole PND18-06 returned 28.4 metres at 1.17% copper, including 4.3 metres at 3.6% copper. Drill hole PND18-07 returned 1.15% copper, including 8.9 metres at 2.8% copper.
"The Paltridge North deposit assays, arising from the first diamond drilling programme for 32 years, have delivered better than expected results and provide the Strategic Minerals board confidence that Paltridge North could be a significant copper producer in the near future," said Managing Director John Peters.
Peters continued: "Additionally, the assays from the first hole at the Rosmann East deposit support potential additional mineralisation below the existing open pit floor. This is good news due to the ease of accessibility to this ore.
"Management and the board look forward to restarting the Mountain of Light operations in the first half of 2019 and moving into long term, higher volume production at a later date."
Shares in Strategic Minerals were up 3.9% Monday at 1.74 pence each.
