14th May 2007 07:02
Carnegie Minerals plc14 May 2007 14th May 2007 Carnegie Minerals Plc ("Carnegie" or the "Company") Substantial air-core drilling programme commenced on magnetic targets in Southern Senegal Carnegie Minerals Plc (CME), the mineral sands resource company with productioninterests in The Gambia and advanced exploration in adjoining Senegal, ispleased to announce that it has commenced a substantial air-core drillingprogramme over its exploration licence in Southern Senegal. Perth-based Wallis Drilling will drill a minimum of 8,000 line metres to testlinear geophysical targets interpreted as possible dune/strandline accumulationsof heavy minerals based on the high resolution airborne magnetic & radiometricsurvey of the licence area in late 2007. Three large priority areas have been identified for initial test drilling, whichis carried out at about 40 to 50 m drill hole spacing and 1.5 m samplinginterval predominantly along some existing roads crossing these lineargeophysical targets. Subject to the results of this test drilling, Carnegie will plan any follow-upexploration, which could include the delineation and in-fill drilling ofpotential new mineralisation areas. Carnegie would also like to update the market as to its Gambian operations whereit has three dredges fully operational and a fourth scheduled to come intoproduction next month. The project is already producing around 10,000 tonnes permonth of Heavy Mineral Concentrate for export to China under existing offtakeagreements. Alan Hopkins, Managing Director of Carnegie commented: "Following our announcement on 2 May of the independent resource statement forour Niafarang deposit, we are very happy to be able to report the commencementof the air core exploration drilling programme on the more southern areas of ourSenegal licence area. "This marks another step in our plan, as set out at the time of our recent IPO,to rapidly evaluate the entire project area while simultaneously bringing intoproduction our mineral sands assets in The Gambia. We look forward to updatingthe market on further progress as soon as practicable." - Ends - For further information, call: Alan Hopkins, Managing Director, Carnegie Minerals Plc 020 7831 3113Romil Patel / Olly Cairns, Blue Oar Securities Plc 020 7448 4400Billy Clegg /Edward Westropp, Financial Dynamics 020 7831 3113 Notes to editors: Carnegie listed on AIM in August 2006. It has already brought into fullproduction three dredges and is on track to meet its 2007 production targets inThe Gambia. It has completed a high resolution airborne geophysical survey overthe Southern Senegal licence area generating a number of targets for testdrilling. It drilled the first evaluation target in Senegal (Niafarang) &recently announced a high grade resource for this area. All exploration in Senegal is 50% co funded by Astron Ltd (the largestindependent buyer of zircon in China), with the emerging production in TheGambia fully funded by Astron Ltd (a 50% partner in each project). This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
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