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How will investors take that news about Mark Owen?
Noricum Gold Limited, the European focused base and precious metals exploration and development company, has appointed Mr. Mark Owen, who has spent the past 13 years as Technical Director for leading consultancy Wardell Armstrong International, as a Senior Advisor to the Company with immediate effect.
Mr. Owen’s proven resource conversion skills and intimate understanding of the Soviet (GKZ) resource estimation standards will be an invaluable tool for Noricum Gold as it undertakes its strategy to both increase and convert the historical non-JORC resources, to JORC, at its recently acquired Bolnisi copper & gold Project in Georgia. The Project currently has total mineral resources (non-JORC, C1, C2 & P1 Soviet Reserves & Resources) of 980,000 tonnes of contained copper; 6.6 million ounces of gold; and 22 million ounces of silver. Further information on the Bolnisi project as well as the Soviet Reserves and Resources is included below.
Mr. Owen has worked for over 31 years as a mining and exploration geologist, in both the metalliferous and industrial mineral mining sectors. He has considerable expertise of front line production mining and exploration, including underground, working on mines in the UK, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Throughout his career he has had responsibility for technical service teams addressing resource estimation, exploration planning and grade control management. For the past 13 years, he has held the position of Technical Director for Wardell Armstrong International, where he has developed an extensive portfolio of exploration and mining-related contracts, from project management through to technical audits of a diverse range of mineral deposits particularly in Europe, Russia and the CIS, North and West Africa. He has considerable experience completing major projects from scoping level through to full bankable feasibility study and at the same time, is conversant with the requirements of both the London and North American stock exchanges.
Noricum Gold CEO Greg Kuenzel said, “Mark has excellent credentials which are specific to our requirements at Bolnisi and I am delighted to welcome him to our team as we focus on rapidly converting the Project’s significant GKZ resources to JORC compliant standards. This asset represents a truly transformational opportunity to add significant value to Noricum Gold in the short term and I am pleased that it has attracted an advisor of Mark’s calibre and experience. Considering its potential, we look forward to commencing work here as soon as practicable and will provide updates at the appropriate time.”
The Bolnisi Project
The 861 km2 Bolnisi Project which is located in the Republic of Georgia, contains multiple, large copper & gold non-JORC resources. A non-JORC resource (Soviet C1 & C2 Reserves) exists across the 3 priority sites of Tsitel Sopeli, East Kvemo Bolnisi and West Kvemo Bolnisi of:
· 450,000 tonnes of copper (avg grade 1.31%);
· 835,000 oz of gold (1.16 g/t);
· 20 Moz of silver (23.71 g/t);
· 22,000 tonnes of lead (1.23%);
· 52,000 tonnes of zinc (2.9%);
· 1.5 Mt Barite (BaSO4) (27%).
The Soviet Reserves were defined following extensive drilling carried out in the mid 1980’s. A significant amount of diamond drilling has been completed on these 3 targets including tightly spaced 40 metre by 40 metre resource drilling at Tsitel Sopeli where approximately 15,000 metres of drilling has been completed historically. The Company is currently completing a detailed review of these drill results as a precursor to commencing work on converting the Soviet Reserves to JORC compliant resources.
The Bolnisi Project is a proven host to polymetallic volcanic massive sulphide and epithermal deposits and these are represented in the defined resources. Furthermore, the area is fertile to host Au-Cu-Mo porphyry’s which historically have not been the subject of exploration.
