Ariana Resources PLC (LON:AAU) saw its shares rise on Monday after it revealed the results of bulk sampling from the Kizilcukur vein 22 kilometres north of the Kiziltepe mine.
Around 22 tonnes of material were sampled, and returned grades of 4.22 grams per tonne gold and 284 grams silver.
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The Kizlcukur vein lies on the Kizilcukur project, outside of the Red Rabbit joint venture, and is 100%-owned by Ariana
There is already approximately 2,800 tonnes of mineralised material stockpiled on site, with limited additional trial mining in 2019 likely to double that.
Accordingly, planning is underway to truck 300 tonnes of material grading 4.30 grams per tonne and 239 grams silver to the Kiziltepe plant site for bulk processing during summer 2019.
Ariana will then expand its operations at Kizilcukur and truck the remaining 2,500 tonnes of ore to Kiziltepe if processing of the first batch of 300 tonnes is successful.
"These bulk sampling results demonstrate that the Kizilcukur deposit has the capacity to act as a source of high-grade satellite feed to the Kiziltepe processing plant,” said managing director Dr Kerim Sener.
“We are encouraged by the results of this recent work and the current drilling programme will add confidence to the resource estimate for the Zeki pit as part of our feasibility work programme. We are planning to truck a 300 tonne batch of ore to Kiziltepe for test processing during the summer, in order to assess the merits of potentially expanding our operations at Kizilcukur."
In early morning trading, Ariana Resources' shares were 7.4% higher at 1.82p.
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