Ann: Maiden Drilling Results for Shield's Tij, page-4

re: Ann: Maiden Drilling Results for Shield&#... definitely not on hotcoppers most discussed stocks list, results look good.

In The Footsteps Of Red Back And Its Tasiast Mine, Shield Mining Is Well Advanced In Its Hunt For A Big Strike In Mauritania

By Our Man in Oz

When most small explorer/miners are flying below the radar of investors it’s worth taking note of one that lights up the screen. That happened a couple of trading days ago in Australia, when Shield Mining rose by 29 per cent on the same day the overall metals and mining index fell by 2.4 per cent. Trading volume in Shield was thin, but when the stock closed at A20 cents, it was at a 12-month high, and trading at a value 10 times its low of A2 cents, hit just three months ago. Interest in Shield this week was generated by a promotional tour of Australian brokers by Shield’s London-based chief executive, David Netherway, and by the contents of his 40-page presentation which detailed what might turn out to be a significant gold discovery in the West African country of Mauritania.

The most recent drill results from Shield’s Tijirit project were released last week and included a six metre intersection assaying an eye-catching 17.63 grams a tonne of gold from a depth of 10 metres. But, just as one swallow does not make a summer, neither does a single assay result make a mine, which is why Shield was a modest performer between the release of that assay on June 9th, and Netherway’s show-and-tell, which include a private viewing for Minesite’s Man in Oz.

What becomes clear is that the high-quality drill hit is only telling part of the story. The real message lies in the location of Tijirit and the tell-tale signature of surface chemistry, on which have been outlined a series of high-priority targets. The location is 35 kilometres south-east of the 230,000 ounce-a-year Tasiast goldmine owned by Canadian miner Red Back. Geologically, Tasiast and Tijirit are strikingly similar, as early French explorers working for the government mineral agency, BRGM, first reported some two decades ago.

Time, the odd revolution, and the normal issues of working in Africa delayed anyone taking a serious look at Tijirit. Tasiast did get a look in, though, and it was duly opened in 2007 in an area which Red Back describes as being “an extensive gold system which is largely under-explored.” Red Back adds that: “Tasiast is the first mine in the highly prospective 70 kilometre long by 15 kilometre wide north-south trending Achaean age Aoueouat greenstone belt.” Now that Mauritania has settled after its latest military coup a detailed exploration program of the region is underway, and work has been enhanced by the new ability of explorers to find a way to peer through a thick calcrete cap that’s covering any mineralisation. Hopefully, next they’ll find a few consonants to go with the vowels in some of Mauritania’s geographic names.

It was the calcrete cap of hardened desert sand which rendered useless some conventional exploration tools at Tijirit, but not geochemistry, which returned results of up to one gram a tonne, a remarkable result given that most geochemical surface readings are in parts per million. Netherway, a mining engineer who joined Shield after a 30 year career developing mines in Africa and China, said the key to looking at the Tijirit work at this stage was to focus on the soil samples, which can be seen on a preentation available at www.shieldmining.com.

It’s in his presentation that Netherway goes directly to the soil sample results which cover what he calls “five robust, coherent, gold-in-soil anomalies which have been confirmed by trenching, and now by drilling”. Of the five it is the Eleanor anomaly which is getting Shield’s geologists most excited. It is showing several high-grade soil geochemistry hot spots which have only just started to be drilled. “We need to do a lot more drilling, but the early results are extremely encouraging,” he said. “What helps make them particularly exciting is the presence nearby of two major gold and copper/gold mines, Tasiast and the Guelb Moghrein mine of First Quantum. It might be early days but the similarities with Tasiast are there for anyone to see.”

Tijirit is not the only project on Shield’s books. It also has the Akjoujt prospect close to Guelb Moghrein, and the Saboussiri prospect in the south of Mauritania, adjacent to the border with Senegal. BHP Billiton has reported copper/gold in early drilling at Saboussiri, and Ekjouit shows a geological signature similar to Guelb Moghrein. But, the real interest in the next drilling season - which gets underway after the end of the scorching Mauritanian summer - will be Tijirit. A project and company to keep an eye on.