Ariana Resources Plc (LON:AAU) Chief Executive Officer Kerim Sener caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss the new drilling programme at Kiziltepe, their new drilling targets and the progress of the mine construction
Q1: You’ve announced the commencement of a new drilling programme at the Kiziltepe site, what is this drilling expected to achieve?
A1: On the Reverse circulation (RC) rig now, we’ve got 2 rigs running, RC down on the southern end of Arzu South vein and we’ve got the diamond rig that I can see up on top of the hill, our diamond crew is working on that. We’re drilling at 2 ends of the Arzu South vein system, testing down-plunge and down-dip of the known vein extents, currently testing below design at pit bottom just to see if we’ve got opportunity for resource extension in the immediate area of pit bottom. So that’s the programme that we’ve got designed here at Kiziltepe, it’ll be a relatively short programme here, about 600 metres or so and then our RC rig is heading up to our Kizilcukar prospect which is about 25 kilometres away to the east/north east of Kiziltepe and we’ve got about 1,400 metres of drilling to undertake there which will primarily resource drilling. We’ve only got a small resource at Kizilcukar, just shy of 17,000 ounces of gold equivalent so we want to see if we can start converting some of that into indicated resources at the very least, possibly to add to that resource. Once we’ve finished that programme then we’ll be moving the RC rig back closer to Kiziltepe, actually about 5 kilometres away to the north to a place called Kepez West and Far West, we’ve got another 1,300 metres drilling currently designed in that area and that’s really greenfields drilling, a few exploration drilling to see whether we can snag the veins that we’ve discovered in a sub plot in that particular location.
Q2: How long do you think the programme is due to last?
A2: The programme should take us until around early to mid-December.
Q3: How does this programme tie in with your over-arching strategy?
A3: Our key goal here at Kiziltepe is to get the mine up and running as soon as possible and the construction crews at Proccea working very hard, I’m actually just looking over the work they’re doing and in the process plant area they’re just building up the foundation area for the water tanks there. That work is obviously ongoing, we’re getting busier and busier on the construction side but in the meantime, we want to be extending our resource base across the Kiziltepe sector so this exploration/resource drilling is designed to start achieving that objective. Obviously, it’s going to take further drilling to fully build up the resource base but this initial programme is designed to get us started on that so it’s an exciting end to the year.
Q4: You’ve identified a number of new drilling targets, can you tell us more about those?
A4: Over the last 18 months to 2 years we’ve undertaken a lot of exploration over the Kiziltepe sector, working all the way from Kiziltepe itself through to Kepez and on to Kizilcukar so we’ve covered an area of about the size of the Channel Island of Jersey and all of that is under licence to the Joint Venture and in the case of Kiziltepe, if we add that as well it’s a little bit more than the island of Jersey. So it’s a huge area to be covering and we’ve identified multiple targets throughout that area but obviously we’re going to be drilling those targets that are immediately accessible to us at this time and those are the ones I’ve just discussed so Kiziltepe, Arzu South area, Kizilcukar and Kepez Far west but there are many other targets which we need to come round to testing in time.
Q5: How is the mine construction coming on?
A5: Mine construction is, as I explained a moment ago, really coming on fantastically, they’re getting busier and busier. We’re actually in the early stages of the primary contract, the mobilising to site, to get major earthworks underway particularly in the process plant area. Right now, just looking out over the site, we’ve got the accommodation buildings up fully, we’ve got the administration building and related infrastructure around there in the process of being completed, we’ve got the workshop area, garage and the laboratory foundations going in and then up on the hill, we’ve got the water tanks for the process plant.
Q6: Now you recently had a site visit with analysts and investors, was it a success?
A6: It was a resounding success I think. It was great to be able to show people all the development that has occurred on-site really over the last few months, ever since we secured our forestry permit and got clearance to proceed. Just looking at the site now, it’s a dramatic change from what it was earlier on this year, we’ve got all the security fence line is pretty much across the whole project area and all that work is going on both on the construction side and the exploration side now. I think compared to our last site visit in fact it was undertaken in November 2010, a lot has happened, a lot has changed and there were some people that attended both site visits and they were privilege to see the dramatic change that has occurred on-site since.
