www.amurminerals.com
Amur Minerals Corporation (AMC) is a rapidly-growing mineral resource exploration and development company focused on base metal projects located in the far east of Russia. The Company has three properties in the region with its principal asset being the Kun-Manie sulphide nickel, copper project located in Amur Oblast. With a JORC compliant resource of over a quarter of a million tons of contained nickel, Kun-Manie is one of the five largest new nickel sulphide discoveries since Voisey’s Bay.
Amur Minerals reports another potential extension to Kun-Manie copper-nickel deposit
Russia focused copper and nickel miner Amur Minerals (LON:AMC) today said its Kun Manie-Ikenskoe deposit in Russia’s Far East could potentially expand after nickel sulphide mineralisation was exposed in a road cut south of the Ikenskoe deposit, which is the largest of the three drilled deposits within the Kun Manie exploration licence.
The nickel and copper mineralisation is expected to continue to the east and south of the drilled area of the deposit. The zone was exposed during construction of the access road and visual inspection indicated that the newly exposed outcrop contained abundant sulphides.
Samples from the road cut were delivered to Khabarovsk for transhipping to the laboratory on the weekend of June 12. Results will be announced once the ore has been tested and the results have been verified by a western certified laboratory.
“This find confirms our belief that Ikenskoe could be substantially larger than presently reported, and our initial expectations are that the mineralisation extends both to the east and south of the known deposits. I look forward to announcing the laboratory results when available,” said chief executive Robin Young.
The company has been making rapid progress at Kun-Manie over the past year and this is the second time a potential expansion to the deposit has been announced in less than two months. Back in April, Amur announced a new drill target dubbed Gorney after results from two wild cat drill holes defined the potential to expand upon mineral resources at its Kun-Manie nickel-copper sulphide licence. The holes each intersected two nickel copper sulphide enriched layers within the sill. The upper band averaged 6.9 metres in thickness whilst the lower was slightly thicker at 7.4 metres. The average grades for both layers were 0.48% nickel and 0.13% copper.
The company acquired a five year exploration license for Kun-Manie and subsequently extended it for two years through 2010.
It filed the mining licence application for Kun-Manie with the Russian authorities in mid-December 2009, with a six to twelve months period expected for the application to be approved by the four Russian agencies responsible for awarding such a license.
Kun-Manie hosts an estimated JORC compliant resource of 341,000 tonnes of nickel and 95,500 tonnes of copper. The GKZ (The Russian State Committee on Reserves) estimate is for 3,960 tonnes of cobalt, 189,400 ounces of platinum and 213,800 ounces of palladium for the three deposits at Kun-Manie.
