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Minera IRL reports substantial maiden resource for Concurayoc at Ollachea gold project

Published: 12:04 07 Sep 2011 BST

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Minera IRL Ltd (TSE:IRL, LON:MIRL) has reported a substantial maiden resource for the Concurayoc Zone of its Ollachea gold project in Southern Peru.

This NI43-101 compliant mineral resource estimate was carried out by Coffey Mining consultancy and totals 10.4 million tons grading 2.8 grams per ton gold for Concurayoc, thus containing 0.9 million ounces.

The total indicated mineral resource defined so far at Ollachea is therefore 10.7 million tons grading 4.0 g/t gold containing 1.4 million ounces, plus an inferred resource of 13.7 million tons grading 2.8g/t for 1.2 million ounces of gold.

Minera pointed out that the Concurayoc Zone is only 400 meters along strike to the west of the Minapampa Zones which contain the mineral resource underpinning the very positive pre-feasibility reported in July 2011.

It also believes there is good potential to link the Minapampa and Concurayoc Zones with planned ongoing drilling.

The new estimate at the Concurayoc Zone, which covers a strike length of 700 meters, was based upon 45 diamond drill holes on approximately an 80 meter grid for 16,943 meters.  The total mineral resource at Ollachea is based upon 165 diamond drill holes for 63,347 meters.  The dip and spatial orientation of the mineralized zones at Concurayoc are broadly similar to the mineralized zones hosted within the Minapampa zones.

Chairman Courtney Chamberlain said:  "The in-fill drilling at Concurayoc, discovered in 2010, has been most encouraging, demonstrating a very substantial new gold resource. The Minapampa and Concurayoc Zones are only separated by approximately 400 meters and we believe that geologically there is excellent potential for connecting these zones with further drilling. 

“Gold mineralization at Ollachea is open ended in both directions along strike as well as down dip so we have every expectation that the resource will continue to grow.  Approximately one kilometre of potentially economic mineralized extensions east of Minapampa will be explored by underground drilling from the recently announced exploration drive." 

Last week, Minera approved plans to develop a 1.2 kilometer exploration tunnel at the Ollachea project to access an ore body that was defined in July’s pre-feasibility study.

From this 1.2 kilometer ‘drive’ Minera will be able to carry out underground exploration drilling so that it can test a 1 kilometer eastern strike extension of the known mineralization that cannot be drilled effectively from surface.

The project has already been permitted by the Peruvian authorities and Minera has hired a Peruvian contractor. So work can get start almost immediately. It will take 15 months to complete the ‘drive’ and it has a budgeted cost of US$14.9 million (including a 10 per cent contingency).

This tunnel will also assist management's production schedule objective of late 2014.

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