On the heels of some encouraging drilling hits, White Cliff Minerals (ASX:WCN) has extended its exploration rights at the Aucu gold project in the Kyrgyz Republic, adding time to follow-up plans at a high-grade zone along strike from a 1.2 million tonne resource at 4.2g/t gold.
The Aucu exploration license has been extended for five years to December 2020 as the company continues metallurgical testwork and seeks local government approvals to further prove up mineralisation on the property.
Average gold intersections were greater than 30 g/t over a 400 metres strike length and all intersections were shallower than 100 metres depth. In addition mineralisation is outcropping at surface.
Due to the exceptionally high gold grade of the 2015 assay results, all mineralised samples from the 2014 and 2015 drilling programs have been transported to Perth for detailed metallurgical test work to establish the amount of both gravity recoverable gold and leachable gold.
Metallurgical results for the 2014 samples are expected in late January and the 2015 sample results are expected mid-February.
Recent drilling highlights at Aucu have included 9 metres at 6.83 g/t gold from 29 metres, 3 metres at 4.33 g/t gold from 3 metres and 3 metres at 6.97 g/t gold from 45 metres.
Other recent hits have marked 3 metres at 3.86 g/t gold from 84 metres, 3 metres at 5.34 g/t gold from 26 metres and 2 metres at 3 g/t gold from 7 metres.
This work has expanded on earlier drilling at the site which consistently delivered extremely high-grade results such as 4 metres at 59.9 g/t gold from 66 metres, including 1 metre at 189 g/t gold.
Other notable assays have returned 2 metres at 43.5 g/t gold from 86 metres, 1 metre at 103.4 g/t gold from 74 metres and 3 metres at 41.4 g/t gold, including 1 metre at 71 g/t gold.
A targeting model based on integrating maps and magnetic data is expected to be completed next month in preparation for this year's drilling campaign.
Analysis
The extension of Aucu license for another five years allows White Cliff to confidently advance the gold deposit, potentially through to development as a multi-million ounce operation.
The structural modelling currently underway will provide a deeper understanding of the mineralised zones allowing more effective deployment of resources while ongoing metallurgical testing confirms the level of gravity recoverable gold and helps guide development of preliminary process parameters.
This progress overall will drive White Cliff toward establishing a highly anticipated economic assessment of the deposit.
Immediate price catalysts related to this momentum can be found in the metallurgical testwork samples for which results are expected both later this month and in mid-February.
The potential to establish a multi-million-ounce resource in this large exploration area (which remains 90% undrilled) is illustrated by the size of the various operating mines within 50 kilometres of the site, including Charaat Gold’s (AIM:CGH) 6-million-ounce Charaat mine and Fortune LLC’s 5-million-ounce Ishtamberdy mine.
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