Development work at the Omagh underground gold mine, in Northern Ireland, is continuing on, or above, target, dual-listed Galantas Gold's CEO Roland Phelps, reported on Monday.

In a media statement updating development progess, he said that an access drive on the fourth level, or 1 060 m, had intersected the Kearney vein ahead of schedule and that the intersection had shown strongly developed mineralisation.

The north and south faces of the vein were channel sampled, with the average of the two channels reported at 8.35 g/t gold over an average true width of 2.65 m.

Galantas said that the vein intersection was expected to allow in-vein development north and south on the fourth level.

Development on the fourth level should produce increased feed tonnage to the processing plant, which produced a concentrate sold under an offtake contract.

Development on the third level, or 1 072 m, continued southwards with gold grades within the expected range.

A drivage from the 1 072 access had been taken northwards, in-vein, for about 40 m. Two channel samples were taken across the face as the drivage was developed at 24.1 m and 27.6 m into the third level north development and showed a grade of 6.2 g/t gold and 16.3 g/t gold, respectively, each with a true width of 3 m.

The vein would continue to be followed northwards on the third level and Galantas said it elevated potential for additional mineralisation to be added to the resource model if discovered on the adjacent first, second and fourth levels, which had not yet accessed this area.

By June 30, about 1 623 m of drivage had been completed since underground development started.

“I look forward to increases in concentrate output that are expected to be the result of the latest development. The potential for an expansion of the Omagh gold resource remains very high. It is the intention to continue the drilling programme as cash flow permits. The programme, which will be mainly conducted underground, will be focused on targets accessible for mining,” commented Phelps.