Sunrise Res Regulatory News (SRES)

28 Feb 2006 09:00

Sunrise Diamonds PLC28 February 2006 www.sunrisediamonds.com 28 February 2006 SUNRISE PREPARES TO TEST SIX NEW DIAMOND TARGETS AT ITS KUUSAMO DIAMOND PROJECT IN FINLAND • Use Of BHP Billiton Finnish Database Leads To Claims On Additional 21 Targets • Micro-Diamond Analysis Results Awaited From Kuusamo And Koskeniemi • 'Exploration Programmes Growing At Exciting Pace', Reports Chairman Sunrise Diamonds plc ("Sunrise" or "the Company") is pleased to provide furtherdetails of the status of its exploration and continuing ground acquisitionprogrammes in Finland where it has discovered six kimberlites to date, two withmicro-diamonds, in drilling nine targets in the newly discovered Kuusamokimberlite cluster. Over the past few months the Company has carried out an extensive and ongoingprogramme of ground geophysics to prepare additional targets for drill testing.Drilling will resume in March to initially test six of the 41 targets generatedby the Company in the Kuusamo area. In addition, Sunrise continues to work on its countrywide diamond explorationdatabase for Finland which incorporates the database recently acquired from BHPBilliton and which was generated by Diamet prior to its takeover by BHP Billitonin 2001. At its recent AGM the Company gave the first details of some of thetargets that are emerging from this work including numerous unresolved trains ofkimberlite indicator minerals e.g. G10 garnets, and in two particular cases,micro- and macro-diamonds in areas where the bedrock sources do not appear tohave been identified. To date the Company has applied for claims and claim reservations over a further21 targets outside the Kuusamo area. These recent acquisitions now include twokimberlite pipes in the Kaavi-Kuopio cluster which the Company considers to beunder-evaluated. The Koskeniemi kimberlite, discovered in 1964, was the firstkimberlite ever discovered in Finland in 1964. Previous drilling defined acircular plug of kimberlite some 100m in diameter whilst at Kalajarvi limiteddrilling defined kimberlite over an area of 100m by 50m without closure andfurther work is warranted. The Company has also applied for claims over several other areas wherekimberlite has been intersected in drilling, but not followed up, including onearea where kimberlite dykes up to 10m drill thickness have been found over a1.6km strike length between two diamondiferous pipes. The Company is awaiting micro-diamonds results from a sample of the Koskeniemikimberlite and also from further samples of its Anomaly 45 kimberlite discoveryat Kuusamo which returned five micro-diamonds from a preliminary sample. "Our exploration programmes in Finland are growing at an exciting pace and weare looking forward to reporting further results on a regular basis." said theCompany's Chairman, Patrick Cheetham." Further Info: Patrick Cheetham, Sunrise Diamonds plc. Tel: +44 (0)1625-505947.Mob: +44 (0)7767-458751 John Greenhalgh/Ron Marshman, City of London PR Ltd. Tel: +44 ( 0)20-7628-5518 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange