sukhoi log

Very resourceful

WE would never want to be a judge if there were to be an annual Gilding the Lily award for ASX exploration announcements, so great would be the competition. But a strong contender, at least for the shortlist, would have to be Empire Resources. Listed only a few weeks but displaying a practised hand as it penned an announcement this week, Empire signalled the start of drilling at its Troy Creek copper-gold-platinum prospect near Wiluna. And how prospective is it? Better hold your hats. "The mineralisation shows similarities to the very large Sukhoi Log gold-platinum deposit in Russia, the large Carlin-trend-style gold province in the US, and the Coronation Hill deposit in the Northern Territory," said Empire.

Sukhoi Log is known as "the world's greatest gold deposit" with at least 32 million ounces and was the subject in the early 1990s of a feasibility study by Star Mining (directors including Malcolm Turnbull and Neville Wran). Carlin-style refers to the string of deposits held by Newmont Mining in Nevada, which contained 66 million ounces of gold, while Coronation Hill was the big gold-platinum deposit in the Northern Territory that was mothballed by the Hawke government in deference to Greens protests.

Empire should think about the wisdom of one of the oldest pieces of advice in the mining business: never ruin a good story by drilling it.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21276645-18261,00.html