TIDMSMA
RNS Number : 9204S
Sovereign Mines of Africa PLC
30 September 2014
30 September 2014
Sovereign Mines of Africa PLC
("SMA" or "the Company")
Assay of final batch of results from Phase III drilling at
Mandiana
Sovereign Mines of Africa PLC (AIM:SMA), a gold mining
exploration Company with properties in the Republic of Guinea in
West Africa, is pleased to announce the assay results of eight
Reverse Circulation (RC) drill holes from the Mandiana gold project
in the Republic of Guinea. In the Yagbelen Zone, one drill hole,
RCY_93_3, intersected a high-grade quartz-vein cutting an interval
of four metres averaging 18g/t gold from 87 metres and a second
hole, RCY_95_3, cut a broad zone of 27 metres averaging 1.46g/t
gold from 43 metres.
John Barry, SMA's Director of Exploration, commented:
"These very encouraging results confirm the impressive grade of
high-grade shoots within a broader extensively mineralized
envelope. The deep weathering and oxidization to depths of up to
120 metres supports the potential for a low-cost, open-pit bulk
mineable resource at the Yagbelen Zone. What is new, is that the
potential for a high-grade underground operation should now also be
given very serious consideration."
"We always recognised the potential of Mandiana and the real
opportunity to discover a multi-million ounce resource. A team from
a major international gold mining group who visited the site in
June this year were of the opinion that Mandiana has the potential
for a Tier 2 gold mine supporting annual production in the range
between 200,000 ounces and 500,000 ounces of gold."
In October last year SMA announced a maiden inferred JORC gold
resource of 610,000 ounces of gold at an average grade of 1.2 g/t
based on only 15,500 metres of drilling and covering only seven
percent of the mineralized strike. This relatively early stage
milestone compares very favourably with other more advanced gold
projects in the region such as Avocet Mining PLC's (AIM:AVM) Yaoure
gold project in the Ivory Coast and TrueGold Mining Inc.'s
(TSX-V:TGM) Karma gold project in Burkina Faso, when they were at a
similar stage of evaluation. With the acquisition of the Mandiana
South Concession last November SMA has no less than seven major
artisanal areas, which have never ben drill-tested
(http://www.sovmines.com/mandiana-magana-maps/).
Samples from the RC drill holes concerned were in storage at our
camp at Mandiana, having been drilled as part of the Phase III
drilling campaign, but were not assayed as they were not necessary
to support the independent estimate of the maiden resource
announced in October 2013. Given that operations on the ground will
not continue until the risk from the ebola virus in West Africa has
passed the Company decided that now would be an appropriate time to
have them assayed.
Principal results for the reverse circulation holes are
summarized below:
Interval (m) Grade
Gold
Drill Hole From To Length (gpt) Zone
RCY_90 7 9 2 1.26 Yagbelen
and 32 36 4 1.15
and 67 71 4 1.18
and 84 90 6 1.16
RCY_93 34 36 2 1.06 Yagbelen
and 59 67 8 1.10
and 87 91 4 18.14
RCY_95 9 13 4 1.45 Yagbelen
and 27 31 4 1.32
and 43 70 27 1.46
RCW_106 7 11 4 2.16 Woyondjan
RCY_118 13 18 5 1.37 Yagbelen
and 27 30 3 1.08
Notes: 1. Composited assays for the above Table were calculated
at a cut off grade of 0.3 gpt gold.
2. Mineralised intervals presented above do not represent true
widths. All drill holes are inclined 50deg WSW except RCW_106 which
inclined at 90deg. The Company currently interprets the mineralized
zones to dip moderately to the northeast but, until structural
analysis through measurements of oriented cores has been carried
out, geometry cannot be reliably understood.
3. A map showing positions of the drill holes can be viewed on the Company website (http://www.sovmines.com/mandiana-magana-maps/).
The Mandiana property is owned by the Company's subsidiary,
Sovereign Mines of Guinea Limited ("SMG"). 25 per cent of SMG is
owned by SOGUIPAMI, the Republic of Guinea's state-owned mining
firm. The property is located within a few kilometers of the
eastern frontier with Mali, 30 kilometres from Hummingbird
Resources PLC's (AIM:HUM) Yanfolila development gold project in
Mali and only 10 kilometres from Avocet's Tri-K gold project area.
Mandiana is the site of extensive artisanal gold mining with more
than 9,000 artisanal pits discovered on site to date and prior to
SMA's exploration of the area it had never been drilled or
evaluated by modern exploration methods.
Given the very challenging market conditions for Junior gold
explorers even with high-quality early-stage gold projects, SMA is
continuing to seek a strategic partner with the financial resources
and commitment required to realize the potential of this very
extensive mineralizing system. There are currently several
interested parties to whom we have given access to our online
Project Dataroom.
Qualified Person
The technical information in this release has been reviewed by
John Barry, P.Geo, a Competent or Qualified Person as defined by
PERC, JORC and NI 43-101.
Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QA/QC)
Samples are sent to the ALS laboratory in Bamako in Mali. ALS is
part of the ALS Group, which is a global leader in the provision of
analytical services to the international mining industry. At the
lab in Bamako samples were prepared (code Prep 22-2) and then
decomposed by fire assay (code Au-AA26) with AAS finish. The entire
sample is dried, coarse crushed and pulverized to better than 85 %
of the material passing through a 75 micron (Tyler 200 mesh)
screen. A split of 250g is then pulverized to better than 85%
passing 75 micron and homogenised. A 50g sample is then decomposed
by fire assay fusion FA-FUS03 & FA-FUS04and analysed by atomic
absorption spectroscopy (AAS).
ALS Chemex has developed and implemented a Quality Management
System (QMS) at each of its laboratories. ALS Chemex laboratory
operations are covered by ISO 9001:2000 certification for the
"provision of assay and geochemical analytical services" by QMI
Quality Registrars, and accredited to ISO 17025 standards in
various jurisdictions. All laboratories are operating under the
same quality system and use the same standard operating procedures
(SOP). : The ALS (Chemex) Laboratory in Bamako is working under a
combination of ALS Chemex Vancouver and Johannesburg supervision.
At ALS Chemex an internal Quality Control Group coordinates all
inter-lab round robin work, and also directs all laboratories to
participate in various external proficiency testing programs.
ALS Chemex QA/QC involves the preparation of every 50(th) sample
at the crushing stage and 20(th) sample at the pulverization stage
are tested for fineness by screening. Samples are analysed in
batches of 24 which includes one, blank, certified reference
material (standard) and two repeats. In addition SMA inserts one
standard, blank and duplicate in every 20 samples submitted to the
laboratory.
Ends
Enquiries:
SOVEREIGN MINES OF AFRICA PLC
David Pearl, F.C.A. - Chairman +353 696 8961
david.pearl@pearlcp.com
John Barry - Exploration Director +353 87 669 5608
SHORE CAPITAL - NOMINATED ADVISER & BROKER
Toby Gibbs/Bidhi Bhoma - Corporate Finance
Jerry Keen - Corporate Broking +44 207 408 4090
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
END
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