Vast Resources Regulatory News (VAST)

4 Oct 2006 15:01

African Consolidated Resources Plc04 October 2006 African Consolidated Resources Plc ("ACR" or the "Company") Annual General Meeting Statement At African Consolidated Resources Plc's first Annual General Meeting held at11.00am today, all resolutions put to Shareholders were duly passed. Ian Fisher, Chairman, made the following comments regarding the Company'sprogress on its lead projects. "2006 has been a significant year for the Company which has seen us achieve themilestone of Admission to AIM, raising funds to carry out the work programme onour exciting portfolio of assets. Major drilling programmes have continued to delineate further Inferred Resourcesat the Pickstone-Peerless and Giant projects and are expected to be completed inearly October. ACR also intends to complete an incremental Resource update inlate November once all assay results have been assessed. ACR's June 2006 AIM listing accompanied a major Resource upgrade from drillingcarried out on the Peerless and Pickstone (Concession Hill) orebodies, withResources at listing totalling 820,500 ounces of gold. Drilling since the last Resource assessment in early April has concentrated on: • Duchess Hill, a Banded Iron Formation (BIF) ridge immediately east along strike from the Pickstone mine. The Duchess Hill has no historical drilling over much of its 1500m strike length; • Peerless Far East trend, an extension of the Peerless mine; and • Giant Mine, northern and southern extensions of old workings. Since the mid-April Resource upgrade, over 29,000 metres of drilling has beencompleted at the Pickstone-Peerless projects, and over 7,000 metres at the Giantproject. Drill hole line spacing is mostly 50-80m along strike, and hole depthis generally designed to test the steeply-dipping mineralised targets to anominal 120m below surface. However, we have also tested areas of the Pickstonemine with 200m deep holes. Highlights to date include: • The discovery of a southern extension to the Giant Mine, continuing for at least 100m south of previous drilling. Thick sulphide alteration zones are seen in a diorite intrusive, which has good potential for large-tonnage, medium-grade mineralisation. The full extent of the mineralisation is not yet defined, but results include: • 32m @ 1.7 g/t (including 11m at 3.0 g/t) • 5m @ 5.0 g/t • 3m @ 2.7 g/t • At Pickstone, confirmation of gold lodes on Duchess Hill, where 80m spaced drill-lines over 880m of strike has intersected ore-grade mineralisation (>1 g/t) on every line. While surface leaching appears to have lowered the gold grades in the uppermost 30-50m of the hill, significant intersections have been encountered, including • 16m @ 4.1 g/t from 44m depth • 16m @ 2.7 g/t from 78m depth • 2m @ 10.6 g/t from 38m depth These results indicate that Concession Hill and Duchess Hill form asemi-continuous body of BIF-hosted mineralisation approximately 3km long. Withinthis trend the old Pickstone mine produced over 400,000 ounces of gold, and wasdeveloped to 750m below surface. ACR has also carried out further work on various other prospects: • On Peerless, Reverse Circulation Drilling over 1500m of strike at Peerless Far East, following up good RAB drill intercepts, has intersected generally only low-grade mineralisation. However, restricted areas of mineralisation including 8m at 2.02 g/t suggest there are localised higher grade sections worth pursuing in the future. Drill line spacing is 80-160m. • On Pickstone-Peerless, RAB Drilling through shallow cover in valleys between the Peerless and Pickstone mine trends has intersected encouraging gold mineralisation in quartz-veined mafic volcanics, including 6m @ 23.6 g/ t from 9m in PPRA 337 (3m composite samples). This indicates the potential for the existence of further gold resources in the intervening 400-800m of volcanic and volcanoclastic rocks between the main Peerless and Pickstone mine trends. An infill drilling programme is continuing. Results are awaited from deeper drilling beneath Concession Hill (the PickstoneMine Crown Pillar), to increase the Resource down to approximately 200m belowsurface. Drilling efforts at the Giant mine will also be increased to fullyexplore the diorite intrusive target and northern extensions. SRK Consultantshave been contracted to carry out orebody block-modelling and Resource updatesin November. The Board is delighted with the progress that ACR has made to date. We continueto acquire prospective ground and we will be producing a full resource update inNovember." New Chairman It was also announced at the AGM that Peter van der Spuy has agreed to becomeNon-Executive Chairman of the Company subject to normal due diligencerequirements. Ian Fisher will continue as an executive director of the Company. Peter van der Spuy, 65, BSc (Geology) Stellenbosch, MSc (Geology) ColoradoSchool of Mines, Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy,has been active in mineral discovery, development and mining for over 40 yearsin southern Africa, Australasia, south-east Asia and North America. In Zimbabwehe has been responsible for identifying, developing and bringing to fruition theplatinum mining operations of Zimplats, the world's largest platinum operationsoutside South Africa and Russia. In Australia, Peter founded and led the DeltaGold Group of companies which discovered and developed the Granny Smith andKanowna Belle Gold Mines, each of which ranks among Australia's significant goldproducers. Peter was a founding shareholder and chairman of four Australian StockExchange-listed exploration and mining companies (Austminex, Delta Gold, MumbilMines and Zimplats), a founding shareholder and Deputy-Chairman of a NewZealand-listed mining company (Sigma Resources) and is a founding shareholderand chairman of AIM-listed subsea-explorer, Neptune Minerals. Peter is resident in Zimbabwe and is active in the search for minerals in theSouthern African region. This announcement has been reviewed by Mike Kellow, technical director, who is aqualified person for the purpose of the AIM Guidance Note for Mining, Oil andGas companies, being a member of the Australian Institute of Geologists andhaving over 25 years of relevant experience. Unless otherwise stated, drill intercepts are calculated from riffle-split,1metre Reverse Circulation samples with a cutoff grade of 0.5 g/t and includingup to 2m of internal waste. No upper grade cutoff has been applied. Enquiries: African Consolidated ResourcesIan Fisher +44 7920 189 011Roy Tucker +44 1622 816 918 Evolution SecuritiesSimon Edwards +44 20 7071 4330 College Hill +44 20 7457 2020Nick ElwesPaddy Blewer This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange