Significant New Gold & Nickel Targets Identified at Mount
Announced by: FML Announced on: 02/02/2006 08:31:26 Status: Market sensitive (Y)
PERTH Level 34 Exchange Plaza 2 The Esplanade Perth Western Australia 6000 Phone: 61 8 9421 2121 Fax: 61 8 9421 2122 Email: [email protected] KALGOORLIE PO Box 646 Kalgoorlie Western Australia 6430 Phone: 61 8 9021 7600 Fax: 61 8 9021 7556 Email: [email protected] MEDIA / ASX RELEASE 2 FEBRUARY 2006 SIGNIFICANT NEW GOLD AND NICKEL TARGETS IDENTIFIED AT THE MOUNT AGGRESSIVE FOLLOW-UP DRILLING PLANNED AT KEY DEPOSIT WITHIN REDEMPTION JV WA-based gold company Focus Minerals Ltd (ASX: FML) and its joint venture partner, Canadian- based Matador Exploration Inc., continue to generate encouraging exploration results from their Redemption Joint Venture in Western Australia with results of a program of MMI (Mobile Metal Ion) geochemistry generating 11 new high-priority gold targets and two nickel targets at The Mount Project (370,000 ounces of current resources) near Widgiemooltha, 35km south-west of Kambalda. The encouraging results from The Mount follow recently announced high-grade drilling results from the 235,000-ounce Dreadnought Project, one of the other key deposits within the Redemption Joint Venture which was established last year consolidating ownership of a 210km 2 tenement holding in the Coolgardie region of Western Australia. The MMI program at The Mount identified 11 discreet gold anomalies and two areas with high nickel prospectivity. The gold anomalies lie within two north-west trending corridors that are coincident with major regional structures with a similar trend to gold mineralization to that defined at the existing gold resource at The Mount. The areas with high values of nickel occur as distinct layers within an ultramafic sequence and are interpreted to represent basal members of komatiitic flows. The MMI sample program, which was completed in late 2005, extended and in-filled limited previous MMI geochemical sampling conducted over specific targets and EM conductors. The Mount tenements have now been sampled by MMI geochemistry at a minimum 50m x 50m spacing with 25m x 50m spacing in priority areas. Focus Minerals' Managing Director, Mr Peter Williams, said the MMI results were very encouraging with the joint venture partners planning an aggressive reverse circulation exploratory drilling program to follow up the MMI anomalies. "Additional field checks and surface rock sampling is currently underway," he said. "Once this is complete, we will move to begin follow-up drilling." "The application of MMI geochemistry demonstrates that the Redemption Joint Venture is employing a broad range of sophisticated exploration techniques to unlock the value of the Coolgardie gold field," Mr Williams commented. The Mount Project covers an area of 1,025 hectares and is located in the Norseman-Wiluna greenstone belt on the eastern margin of the Widgiemooltha Dome, a prolific nickel and gold producing area. The Mount currently hosts a JORC compliant inferred resource of 2,090,000 tonnes grading 5.5g/t Au for 369,570 contained ounces of gold and has a past production history of 12,180 ounces gold from small- scale underground and open pit operations. Gold mineralization at the Mount is hosted in a folded north-northwest trending sequence on mafic and ultramafic rocks and comprises at least 12 quartz lodes, which are in near vertical, sub-parallel shears, commonly altered with tourmaline, biotite and carbonates. The newly identified anomalies occur primarily north and east of the known resource area. COMPETENT PERSON'S STATEMENT The information in this report relating to Resources and Reserves are based on work supervised by Mr Chuck McCormick who is a Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM). Mr McCormick has the relevant experience as a "Competent Person" as defined in the 2004 edition of the Australasian Code for Reporting of Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves in relation to the mineralisation reported on. Mr McCormick is Exploration Manager of Focus Minerals Ltd.and consents to the inclusion of the material in the from and content in which it appears. ENDS Released by: On behalf of: Jan Hope / Nicholas Read Peter Williams, Managing Director Jan Hope & Partners Focus Minerals Limited Telephone: (+61-8) 9388-1474 Telephone: (+61-8) 9421-2121 Web: www.focusminerals.com.au BACKGROUND INFORMATION FOCUS MINERALS LIMITED Focus Minerals Limited (ASX Ticker: FML) is an Australian-based exploration and development group whose focus is to become a significant gold producer in the Coolgardie region of Western Australia. Through its Redemption Joint Venture with Canadian-based Matador Exploration Inc, Focus Minerals is the largest landholder in the Coolgardie Gold Belt located in Western Australia, 560km east of Perth and 35km south of the "Super Pit" in Kalgoorlie. Over 2.6 million ounces of gold has been produced from the Coolgardie gold belt alone since 1892. The Redemption Joint Venture has the mineral rights to more than 210km 2 of under-explored greenstone tenements including Indicated and Inferred Resources totaling 1.4 million ounces of gold (Indicated Resource of 5.32 million tonnes at 1.8g/t gold for 315,720 ounces and Inferred Resource of 13.7 million tonnes at 2.5g/t gold for 1,080,825 ounces), located in one of the world's most significant gold and nickel mining regions.
The Redemption Joint Venture also has a 100% interest in the fully permitted, 1.2mtpa Three Mile Hill processing plant. Matador is sole funding A$8 million of exploration expenditure at Coolgardie in stages over three years with a first-year minimum commitment of A$2.7 million. The overall objective of the Redemption Joint Venture is to define sufficient reserves to enable the Three Mile Hill Plant to operate at full capacity with 5 years of scheduled ore treatment, providing cash flow to further explore the surrounding highly prospective gold belt. To this end, the Redemption Joint Venture has already initiated scoping studies on key deposits within its tenements to determine the viability of reactivating the Three Mile Hill plant. ENDS
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