Noricum Gold Ltd (LON:NMG) Managing Director Greg Kuenzel caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss the new copper discovery in Bolnisi, Georgia
Q1: Greg, we saw this morning news of a new copper discovery in Bolnisi, Georgia. Could you just give us a quick recap on that for us?
A1: Yes, sure. Our current work in Georgia is focussed on two priority targets, Kvemo Bolnisi and Tsitel Sopeli, and the two of them have an existing C1/C2 Soviet Resource which we’re currently working on the conversion of. More importantly, they both have high grade near-surface or at-surface mineralisation which in both instances has presented us with an early stage production target. The new copper discovery actually sits adjacent to one of the deposits that we were already aware of in Kvemo Bolnisi, the results speak I think for themselves, we’ve got some fantastic high grade, very long intercepts there; 40 metres at 2.1% copper including 5 at almost 10, along at 84 metres at 0.7%, 7 metres at 4, 13 at 1.5, so all very very good grade and again, very importantly all close to surface. This copper body seems to be sitting around 20-30 metres from surface, a little bit deeper than the existing gold-copper deposit but again a very attractive target to add to the two we’re already focussing on.
Q2: How will this fit in with Noricum Gold’s current timeline?
A2: The work is ongoing, we put out an announcement earlier this week the first batch of re-assays from the resource verification work we’re doing came back and provided us with very high correlation between the historic results and the new assays. Now this is critical because this means we can place a greater level of reliance of the historic work that’s been undertaken, which not only speeds up the process but it means it’s potentially significantly cheaper because we don’t have to re-drill as many of these holes which is important because on Kvemo Bolnisi and Tsitel Sopeli, there’s been combined over 300,000 metres of drilling undertaken historically. So the work is continuing on the resource verification, we’ve just send off a second batch of drill core and pulps for re-assay from Kvemo Bolnisi, so we’ll be expecting those results back in the coming weeks and the work continues alongside that on the two starter pits, one at Tsitel Sopeli and one at Kvemo Bolnisi. Again these are a priority for us, I’ll use the Tsitel Sopeli one as an example, we’ve got high grade gold and copper at surface, which is important because it means there’s no stripping so it’s very cheap mining, but more importantly we’ve got infrastructure. Our local partner has a gold-copper mine, it’s been in operation for about 30 years, they have a plant there with significant excess capacity, so we have two at surface, very easily minable starter pit targets within in one case 3 kilometres and the other 7 kilometres from a plant with excess capacity so it’s a nice easy pathway through to production for us.
