Mineral exploration and development company Alba Minerals is about to start diamond drilling at the Clogau-St David’s gold mine, in north Wales, in what the company says is probably the first such campaign.
Historic mining at Clogau-St David’s was limited to the mining of visible gold, but Alba believes that modern exploration techniques will maximise the prospects for unearthing new zones of economic gold mineralisation and extensions to existing mine workings.
The first drilling campaign will focus on one of the high priority gold targets, being the Llechfraith mine area, where mining last occurred in the 1980s.
“During the previous periods of operation, the Clogau mine owners limited their efforts to chasing and mining out visible gold-bearing quartz veins within the host Clogau shales. By contrast, Alba’s approach is multi-faceted, and the Llechfraith mine area is a prime example of this. It was last mined in the 1980s and visible gold has been reported in two out of three ore shoots within the mine area. This, when added to the results of our soil sampling programme, which confirmed a strong gold anomaly above the Llechfraith workings, marks out Llechfraith as a strong prospect for the discovery of unexploited gold zones,” explains Alba executive chairperson George Frangeskides.
Drilling contractors have mobilised their diamond drill rig and personnel to site. The drilling will take about two weeks to complete.
The programme is primarily designed to test the structural model, which if confirmed, will underpin a move onto infill drilling and bulk sampling and processing at Llechfraith.
“The strong recovery in the gold price, which recently hit a five-year high of more than $1500/oz, allied to the premium prices which Welsh gold fetches on the open market, underpins our belief in the Clogau gold mine as a key prospect for significant future revenue generation.”