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Minings News article :http://www.miningnews.net/storyview.asp?storyid=53120§ionsource=s0

for those who didnt see IBR's announcement to ASX today

Strong backing for Iberian
Ben Sharples
Monday, January 30, 2006

IBERIAN Resources has raised $A10.2 million to kick start its emerging Lichkvaz gold project in Armenia, which is expected to come online by mid-year at an initial rate of 70,000 ounces per annum.

The budding gold miner placed 17 million shares priced at 60c each with undisclosed domestic and international institutional clients of KTM Capital.

Iberian has earmarked $A5 million for the re-commissioning of Lichkvaz and a further $A1 million for near mine and regional exploration. The company said the project hadn't been explored for the past 20 years.

Iberian managing director Matt Wood told MiningNews.net the company would have a rig stationed at Lichkvaz full-time conducting underground drilling to extend the orebody.

"Lichkvaz is a giant vein swarm and the current resource is calculated on five veins, but nearly all the resource is in two of the veins, purely because the other veins haven't been drilled or tested," Wood said.

"There is also another half a dozen other veins which have had nothing done on them, so we're going to get in there and spend some money in drilling these other veins to build that resource base up."

The Lichkvaz project has a resource of 8.86 million tonnes at 3.68gpt of gold, 23gpt silver and 0.31% of copper for around 1.4Moz of gold equivalent – and is reportedly open in all directions. Total cash costs have been estimated at $US200 per ounce.

Elsewhere, Iberian is looking to allocate funds to establish an initial JORC compliant resource for the Marjan gold project, also in Armenia, and start resource drilling at its Portalegre gold project in Portugal.

Wood said that while the two Armenian projects were situated close to each other, Marjan would have to be a standalone operation if it got off the ground because two mountain ranges separated them.

"Marjan's got a Russian C1, C2 resource on it, and we're going to do a bit of compilation work, some drilling, and we might even put out a JORC number by years end," Wood said.

Iberian has a 40% stake in Marjan and can earn up to 80% by bringing the project into production.

Shares in Iberian, which also holds the 610,000oz Montemor project in Portugal, hit a 52-week low of 20c in June before gaining ground and hitting a 52-week high of 91c earlier this month. The stock remained unchanged during afternoon trade at 71c.

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