Amur Minerals Corporation (LON:AMC) has unveiled what it highlights as a ‘record drill result’ at the Kun Manie project in Russia’s far east, where it is advancing a drill programme designed to expand the project.
The company kicked off the programme in May, and it has so far drilled out some 13,142 metres - with just over 6,000 metres at the IKEN area and 7,136 metres at the KUB area. It accounts for around 65% of the planned programme.
At KUB, the company’s most recent hole has encountered the largest and most ‘continuous thickness’ mineralisation of all the group’s drilling at Kun Manie, measuring some 74 metres with an average of 0.93% nickel and 0.2% copper. This is the easternmost hole drilled in the programme to date.
''The most recently defined block is located towards the middle of the 2017 drill season target and contains the thickest continuous mineralisation intercepted to date at Kun-Manie,” said Robin Young, Amur chief executive.
“With grades of 0.93% nickel and 0.21% copper, the latest discovery is nearly 76 metres thick. Located at the east end of this newly discovered block, it is only 1,150 metres from the Kubuk deposit. We look forward to reporting additional drill updates."
Young added: “Resource expansion drilling at Ikenskoe / Sobolevsky has reaped substantial benefits since mid-May of this year.
“We have already discovered two new mineralised blocks along the 2,800 metre long target between Ikenskoe / Sobolevsky and Kubuk.
“Having drilled about 1,600 metres of the target length from the Ikenskoe / Sobolevsky resource model limit, drilling indicates both blocks average in excess of 0.9% nickel and 0.2% copper at average thicknesses of more than 35 metres.
“These thicknesses are suitable for underground mining.
“The mineral limits remain open at both blocks with substantial expansion potential in the dip direction and eastward toward Kubuk. With infill drilling, these two blocks could substantially impact the project economics due to the higher than historically drilled grades.”
Amur explained that as the current programme draws to a conclusion the focus will be on infill drilling designed to allow resource estimates for the two new mineralised blocks .