announcement out drilling commenced at apollo hill

Announcement Out - as follows:

Apex Commences Drilling at Apollo Hill
Apex Minerals NL (ASX: AXM) wishes to advise that drilling commenced at the
Apollo Hill Joint Venture, located 50km southeast of Leonora in the Northeastern
Goldfields of Western Australia, during last week, as foreshadowed in its June
Quarterly report.
The Apollo Hill Project, which Apex secured earlier this year through a joint
venture with Hampton Hill Mining NL, represents an attractive gold exploration
opportunity in the Leonora region, one of WA’s major gold producing areas.
Previous drilling by companies including Homestake confirmed the presence of gold
mineralisation at Apollo Hill, including some wide low grade intersections.
However, recent re-sampling by Apex of the historic drilling results has indicated
that these results should be treated with some caution until they are verified
because of the course (sic) grained or “nuggetty” nature of the gold mineralisation.
Apex’s initial drilling program will comprise about 1,500m of reverse circulation
(RC) and 500m of diamond drilling, and is expected to take three weeks to
complete. Drilling will initially focus on the western trend and subsequently on the
main zone at Apollo Hill (see figure) to verify the historic drilling results and test
for extensions to these mineralised zones.
Apex will utilise rigorous modern assay techniques including both conventional fire
assays and the LeachWELL technique, as appropriate, for the Apollo Hill drilling
program. The LeachWELL technique is an accelerated cyanide leach of a large (1kg)
sample to minimise the analytical variability associated with course (sic) nuggetty gold,
providing the most reliable estimate of grade.
Recent re-sampling and assaying of two 40m intervals from two reverse circulation
percussion (RC) holes drilled by previous explorers (ARC10 and ARC17)
demonstrates the variability in the results from different assaying techniques, as
indicated below:
Hole Interval Width Original Fire assay Aqua regia
Grade Grade Grade
ARC10 50-90m 40m 1.73g/t 1.86g/t 1.94g/t
ARC17 0-40m 40m 1.08g/t 1.73g/t 0.84g/t
The results verify the presence of gold as reported by previous explorers with the
poor repeatability suggesting that the gold is relatively course (sic) grained and
irregularly distributed throughout the samples (“nuggety”).
With the application of more rigorous assaying techniques to the new drilling
program, Apex intends to release the results from the previous drilling as new
drilling is undertaken in order to verify these results and upgrade the drilling
database for the project.
The Apollo Hill Project represents one of the first exploration opportunities
secured by Apex following the Board and Senior Management restructure and
capital raising completed earlier this year. The Company’s main focus continues to
be on advanced or production opportunities as part of its vision to build a
substantial new Australian mining house.
Background
The Apollo Hill Joint Venture covers an area of 280 square kilometres, situated
approximately 50 kilometres southeast of Leonora in the North Eastern Goldfields
of Western Australia. Major gold mines in the region include Sons of Gwalia and
Tarmoola to the north, and in the adjoining Laverton area, Granny Smith and
Sunrise Dam.
Apex is earning up to a sixty percent interest in the tenements from Hampton Hill
Mining NL.
The project straddles a major shear zone which is a component of the Keith
Kilkenny Fault system. This shear zone is largely concealed beneath transported
overburden associated with the Lake Raeside drainage system, and previous surface
geochemical sampling and shallow RAB drilling has consequently been of limited
effectiveness. Deeper drilling by previous explorers has largely focussed on the
only locality where this shear zone is exposed at surface, Apollo Hill itself, and also
on a nearby parallel trend termed the Western trend.
Mark Ashley
Managing Director
The information in this report that relates to Exploration Results and Mineral Resources is
based on information compiled by Dr. Mark Bennett, who is an employee and Director of
the company. Dr. Bennett is a Member of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy
and has sufficient experience of relevance to the styles of mineralisation and the types of
deposits under consideration, and to the activities undertaken, to qualify as a Competent
Person as defined in the 2004 Edition of the Joint Ore Reserves Committee (JORC)
Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves.
Dr. Bennett consents to the inclusion in this report of the matters based on information in
the form and context in which it appears.

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