The 2021 drilling programme at Tulkubash, in Kyrgyzstan, has added about a year to the project’s mine life, Aim-listed Chaarat Gold reported on Tuesday.
The drilling delivered a 13% increase in gold in the ore reserve to 647 000 oz at a grade of 0.87 g/t, CEO Mike Fraser said.
Contained gold in the measured and indicated resources remained unchanged at 789 000 oz, while measured and indicated resourced decreased from 28.5-million to 25.1-million tonnes and the gold grade increased from 0.86 g/t to 0/98 g/t.
The inferred resources decreased as a result of more conservative constraining factors applied to the mineral resource estimate.
Chaarat said that last year's exploration had identified several additional new target areas, confirming the company's belief that Tulkubash had the potential for further mine life extensions. To date, only about 5 km of a prospective 24 km trend has been trenched and drill tested in 2021, confirming prospectivity to the north-east.