overseas write up on avoca - great article

The following article was recently released by a U.K. based mining portal that has a wide readership throughout Europe and North America.

Feature Story.

Date 27th January, 2005

Avoca Resources Strikes It Rich At Higginsville.

By our Man in Oz.

Higginsville,near the shores of Lake Cowan,might sound a little like a holiday resort.In fact,it is an exceptionally
uninviting stretch of scrub country adjacent to a dried-up salt lake located some 60kms from south of the Western Australian nickel mining centre of Kambalda.

The reason Higginsville is popping up in conversation around the bars and coffee shops of Sydney and Perth is that a small explorer called Avoca Resources has stuck it lucky with what appears to be a company-making gold discovery.

Two sets of drill results have set tongues wagging,not only because the material looks rich, albeit relatively deep,but because the nature of the mineralisation is unlike anything seen before in the region. Rather than a steeply plunging, narrow seam of gold the Trident and Western Zone discoveries at Higginsville are remarkably thick by Australian standards, and described by geologists as remminiscent of the material mined until recently at the Mt Charlotte mine in Kalgoorlie.

Earlybird speculators have taken a modest liking to Avoca which was spun off three years ago by long -term laterite nickel hopeful Heron Resources.
In a burst of enthusiastic buying they have pushed Avoca up from a lacklustre A13 cents to around A23.5 cents as drilling continues with two rigs hopefully punching enough holes into the structures so that management will know by March whether it has a mine.

First news of drilling success at Higginsville came last September when the company reported a 94 metre intersection assaying 3.2 grams a tonne from a depth of 182 metres. Included in that hit was a 17 metre zone returning 12.3g/t from 230 metres, and another of 4 metres at 14.7g/t from 269 metres.
At the time, these results came from a sructure dubbed Poseidon South Extended (since renamed the Western Zone) but bearing that early name because they were close to an old pit and decline called Poseidon South worked by Resolute in the 1990's. That decline which stretches down to the 150 metre level could be the magic lever to an early start on mining because while it needs de-watering it is in good condition and only a few hundred metres from Avoca's discovery.

Much more might reasonably have been expected from the Avoca share price in that first flush of interest because a 94 metre mineralised hit is virtually unheard of in the WA goldfields.
On top of that there is the pedigree of the company and the tenement. Avoca acquired the ground in a competitive bid from South African gold giant, Gold Fields, which inherited it with the purchase of the old WMC gold cetre at St. Ives, about 40 klms to the north.
As well as paying A$2.5 million,Avoca issued Gold Fields with 16 percent of its stock. Avoca management led by Rohan Williams - not the Archbishop of Canterbury- also comes with a WMC/Goldfields stamp because Williams is a former chief geologist at St.Ives and has already investigated the possibility of toll treating Higginsville ore at his old plant.
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More to follow today....sorry but need some sleep.

Sally