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Laconia Resources initial exploration boosts Pilbara base metal projects potential

Published: 05:02 19 May 2011 BST

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Laconia Resources (ASX: LCR) has provided an update on initial exploration at its recently acquired Lennons Find and Yandicoogina Base Metal Projects in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

The acquisitions delivered a JORC Resource and transform Laconia into an advanced exploration play, with near-term development potential.

The company has conducted a review of the resource model for the Lennons Find project with results indicating significant near surface silver values.

At current commodity prices, the zinc equivalent grade at Lennons Find is 16%, greatly enhancing the project’s potential.

In addition, high grade rock chip sampling at the Yandicoogina Project has confirmed its prospectivity for precious and base metals. Highest values included 148g/t gold from old gold workings.

These exploration results from Yandicoogina confirm the prospectivity of the Duffer Formation which hosts the Lennons Find Base Metal deposit.

Ian Stuart, Laconia managing director, said “we are delighted with the outcomes of our initial exploration work at both the Yandicoogina and Lennons Find Projects.

"These projects have consolidated our landholding of base metals assets in the region, and we look forward to further defining the extent of mineralisation at both project areas."

By ramping up its drilling program the company is hoping to capitalise on the current historically high prices for precious metals.

Laconia has a portfolio of advanced gold and base metals projects across 35 granted tenements covering about 955 square kilometres in Western Australia.

Lennons Find was acquired from Jabiru Metals (ASX: JML) and is an advanced base metal exploration project, which has a JORC Inferred Resource of 853,000 tonnes grading 7.7% zinc (Zn), 1.8% lead (Pb), 0.7% copper (Cu) and 115 grams per tonne (g/t) silver (Ag).

Similar style base metal deposits are known throughout the Pilbara region including the 19 million tonne Cu-Zn Panorama deposit recently acquired from CBH Resources by Venturex Resources (ASX: VRX) 100km to the west.

Gold will now be systematically incorporated in the assay suite in any new drilling conducted by Laconia as it has been sporadically assayed throughout the current resource.

At the Yandicoogina project, the previous owners (Shaw River Resources, ASX: SRR) conducted a comprehensive rock chip sampling program in November 2010, and collected 123 samples.

Results outlined an area of anomalous gold and base metal geochemistry centred about 3 kilometres east of the Marble Bar–Nullagine road.

Yandicoogina is less than 10 kilometres south west along strike from the Lennons Find Project, 50km north of Nullagine and 46km southeast of Marble Bar.

The area is easily accessible by numerous graded tracks and the Nullagine to Marble Bar road transects the western side of the project.

The Project lies adjacent to, and west of, the Yandicoogina gold mining centre which produced 199kg of gold from 3,293 tonnes of ore (yielding an average grade of 61.5g/t from 1897-1985).

A number of shallow workings involving shafts, pits and local alluvial workings lie within the Project area.

Currently, a ground based fixed loop geophysical program is in progress at Lennons Find and due for completion in late May.

The company will incorporate this data into drill targeting to further define and delineate the current resource base.

Laconia will commence a shallow reverse circulation drilling program at Lennons Find in June to define the extent of mineralisation.

This will be conducted in conjunction with resource definition drilling on the current resource at Lennons Find in third quarter 2011.

The company said significant silver mineralisation also exists along strike at the Bronze Whaler, Grey Nurse and Tiger prospects at the project.

The Lennon’s Find and Yandicoogina projects are located in close proximity to Laconia’s highly prospective Barramine Base Metal Project.

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