Royal Road Minerals Limited (CVE:RYR) reported positive final exploratory drilling results Monday from its Caribe gold project in north-eastern Nicaragua.
Located in the country’s highly prospective Golden Triangle region, the Caribe project is part of the strategic alliance agreement between Royal Road and Hemco Mineros Nicaragua, a subsidiary of Colombia's Grupo Mineros SA.
The companies undertook an initial 4-hole, 413 meter, exploratory diamond drilling program at Luna Roja. All four holes intersected gold with "significant intersections," the company said, including 1.1 grams of gold per tonne at 28 meters in hole CB-DDH-001; 1 gram of gold per tonne at 14 meters in hole CB-DDH-002; and 1 gram of gold per tonne at 18 meters in hole CB-DDH-003.
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Holes CB-DDH-003 and CB-DDH-004 each ended in gold grade, the company said, with samples returning 2.1 and 2.3 grams per tonne, respectively.
Royal Road discovered the Caribe project while conducting reconnaissance follow up of airborne geophysical anomalies in February 2018. Topographically speaking, the project is planar with no outcrop and no previous record of mineralization in the area.
"The lack of outcrop at Caribe and the fact that this is a completely new gold discovery, leads us to consider these very significant drill results," CEO Tim Coughlin said in a statement.
"That the style of gold mineralization is locally uncommon and poorly understood, adds somewhat to the excitement and intrigue. We will spend some time conducting detailed petrographic studies of the drill core to help us understand more about the mineralizing system at Caribe in preparation for follow-up drilling in 2020."
In May, soil sampling at the site revealed a strongly anomalous area of gold geochemistry of 600 by 400 meters in area. Subsequent rock-chip samples returned gold levels as high as 3.5 grams per tonne.
Royal Road stock increased 6.4% Monday to $0.25.
—Updated to include stock movement—
Contact Andrew Kessel at andrew.kessel@proactiveinvestors.com
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