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Minera IRL: New mineralised system at Don Nicolas

Contributed by Fox-Davies Capital

Minera IRL has announced the discovery of a significant mineralised system at Choique, approximately 1 km from the Martinetas Vein Field, at the Don Nicolas Project, located in the Santa Cruz Province, Argentina. The results of 35 holes, drilled for a total length of 2,386m, demonstrated substantial gold and silver intersections in a new mineralised rhyolite dome host within 50m from the surface.

There are two key points to be made here. The first is that this new find is relatively high grade with around half the economic intersections being better than 4g/t and there are some good widths, better than 10m. Secondly, this new find is only 1.6km from the planned Don Nicolas mill.

As it stands we believe it will add another year to mine life, but the deposit is believed to be open and we would expect an improvement on this figure. A further five holes have been drilled with the results pending. A single scout hole testing an outcropping vein structure 150m east of Choique returned significant gold anomalous mineralisation with assays up to 2.61 g/t gold and 47.1g/t silver.

Along with this high grade mineralisation, there are zones of low grade mineralisation that may be amenable to future treatment using heap leach technology.

It is also imperative to realise that this is a relatively unexplored area but highly prospective. Although it is not included in our evaluation, as that is based on reserves and resources, there is the potential for plenty of upside from extensions to mine life.