Old Pirate Trenching - 166m @ 19.17g/t gold

Hi All,

Our latest round of results from the Old Pirate trenching has exceeded our expectations with combined strike length of 166 metres averaging 19.17g/t Gold.

Old Pirate is a high grade vein hosted coarse gold system located 1800m from our 1.67Moz Buccaneer Porphyry Gold Deposit. With outcropping gold bearing veins and no old workings anywhere in the vicinity this is one of the rare systems left in Australia that the old timers in the gold rush missed.

In Phase 1 of the longitudinal trenching program a total of three veins were sampled. The combined strike length of the exposed veins is 166 metres and the weighted average of the gold grades from within these veins is a spectacular 19.17g/t gold. Overall the area of quartz sampled in Phase 1 is 277.5 square metres and veins range from 10cm to up to 5 metres wide, with a peak assay of 697g/t gold and a single vein strike lengths of 95 metres averaging 27.92g/t gold (including 12m @ 115.10 g/t gold, and 6m @ 37.09g/t gold). This is clearly a very special high grade gold system.

One of the challenges with these types of systems is establishing the overall grade of the veins because of the uneven distribution of the gold within the veins, the drilling often undercalls the grade. We are extremely fortunate at Old Pirate as we have some excellent outcrop and the veins can be followed through shallow soil cover. Therefore we commenced a bulk trenching / sampling program which is not too dissimilar to a grade control program in an open pit. Based on our previous drilling we knew there is some good gold at Old Pirate and we were estimating the average grade of the veins to be between 6 and 10g/t gold. We are thrilled that the first phase of the bulk sampling has yielded overall average results beyond these expectations and delivering an average grade of 19.17g/t gold.

The second batch of samples are on their way to the laboratory and a third phase gets underway shortly. In addition there are thousands of drill samples in the laboratory and the rig is still turning at the Caribbean to Cypress Discovery Zones and Buccaneer Extensions so expect further news shortly. I am off into the field myself next week where I will be working through some of the new discoveries with our geologists and finalising the drill plan going forward.  

Regards,

Darren

Published: 13^th October 2011