It may be heading towards Christmas but it was a fairly busy week for the mining sector. Here are some highlights.
Condor Gold (LON:CNR) unearthed another very high grade sample at its scout drilling and exploration programme at La India in Nicaragua, it told investors.
A rock chip containing 142.2g/t gold was unearthed at the Los Limones prospect just 30m from a 53.9g/t sample found earlier.
Los Limones is 9km north of the main La India deposit and Condor is carrying out scout drilling and soil sampling to better understand the geology of the licence area.
There was also some good news from Shanta Gold Ltd, which has hit its first underground gold at its New Luika mine at Bauhinia Creek in Tanzania, it revealed on Friday.
The intersect occurred just after the nose fault, as predicted in the geological model.
Toby Bradbury, chief executive, said: "Intersecting first ore is a pleasing result and we remain on track to commence first stoping of ore in Q2 2017."
Shanta is already producing gold from an open pit at the New Luika mine.
Production this year is expected to be between 82,000 and 87,000oz of gold.
Meanwhile, Anglo Asian Mining Plc’s (LON:AAZ) newly discovered oxide zone, Ugur, within its Gedabek licence area in western Azerbaijan, is deeper than originally thought.
Early results from a core drilling programme have indicated the depth of the oxide is 60m with significant expansion potential.
Six core drill holes have been completed totalling 1,221 metres and will continue based on a 40-metre grid system to allow for resource and reserve estimation.
Stephen Westhead, Anglo Asian’s director of geology, added: "With core drilling results having determined a significant oxide zone containing gold, it is planned to continue core drilling on a grid in the central area to allow for three-dimensional modelling for resource and reserve estimation of this exciting prospect.
“In conjunction with this, we will also drill the flanks of the area targeted by surface alteration mapping to expand the gold potential.”
Elsewhere, Galileo Resources PLC (LON:GLR) identified several potential drill targets after completing the geophysics survey on the Shirley Trend at its Concordia copper project in South Africa.
The junior miner said the survey showed three high-chargeability zones from near surface to around 500 metres in depth, similar to those found in the Homeep Trend last month.
Anglesey Mining plc (LON:AYM) shares soared after the restructuring of Labrador Iron Mines Holdings Limited (LIMH), in which it has a large stake, was approved.
LIMH's (TSE:LIM) restructuring has been approved by the Ontario authorities and should go through next Monday.
Creditors of Labrador will be issued around 22% of the share capital of Labrador, and also 49% of the shares of its operating subsidiary.
Anglesey's stake will be diluted down from 15% to about 11.9%, leaving it as the second largest shareholder.
“We are very pleased to see LIMH passing this major milestone which will leave it debt free and with all its major assets intact,” said Bill Hooley, chief executive of Anglesey.
There was milestone news for Marble quarries owner Fox Marble Holdings PLC (LON:FOX), which announced it has processed its first block of Illyric White marble at its processing factory in Kosovo.
The processing of marble in Kosovo is an historic first, as Fox Marble's factory is the first marble processing plant in the country.
Up until the long-awaited opening of the factory, Fox Marble had been shipping its slabs off to Italy to be processed.