11 October 2016
Greatland Gold plc
("Greatland" or "the Company")
Ernest Giles - Commencement of Drilling
Greatland Gold plc (LON:GGP), the London Stock Exchange AIM listed precious and base metals exploration and development business is pleased to announce that drilling has commenced at its Ernest Giles project in Western Australia.
Highlights
· Greatland Gold's field operations team have commenced drilling at the Ernest Giles gold project;
· The current drilling programme includes plans for approximately 6,000 metres of RC drilling on a wide-spaced grid pattern (circa 1,600m x 800m drill hole spacing);
· Key objectives of the current RC drilling campaign are to follow up on previous drilling and soil sampling that identified gold, arsenic and antimony anomalies and to identify targets for follow up exploration; and
· Greatland is also pleased to announce that it has expanded its interest in the region by applying for an additional three contiguous licences covering a further 775 square kilometres of the greenstone belt.
Callum Baxter, Executive Director, commented: 'We are very pleased to have commenced drilling at our 100% owned Ernest Giles project. We hope that this ambitious, wide-spaced RC drilling programme will offer us further insight into a portion of a large greenstone belt that remains relatively unexplored and that this campaign will offer up some interesting targets for follow up exploration.
We would remind investors that the larger greenstone belts in Western Australia host a significant proportion of the multiple million ounce gold deposits found to date in Western Australia. It is our intention is determine whether similar deposits may be hosted within this remote and largely unexplored greenstone belt.
In order to best protect our shareholders' interests, Greatland has made application for an additional three contiguous licences covering 775 square kilometres of greenstone taking the Company's total project area to over 1,000 square kilometres and covering more than 120km of strike of gold prospective rocks. The opportunity to secure 100% ownership of a large greenstone sequence is, from a global perspective, a unique opportunity as we aim to tap the potential of this large project.
We expect the drilling programme will take up to six weeks to complete with assay results to follow. We will continue to announce developments at the Ernest Giles project over the weeks ahead as drilling progresses.'
Ernest Giles Project, Western Australia
The Ernest Giles project is located in central Western Australia, covering an area of 270 square kilometres that includes over 30km of strike of gold and nickel prospective rocks. The area is covered by desert sands and sediments, making it virtually unexplored. The region is home to several successful exploration discoveries such as Tropicana (AngloGold ASX:AGG), which contains over 7 million ounces, and Yamarna (Gold Road Resources ASX:GOR), with over 6 million ounces.
Earlier drill programmes by the Company at Ernest Giles intersected gold mineralisation and large alteration systems in wildcat drilling of blind structural targets defined by detailed airborne geophysics. This is considered a major achievement for such a large prospective area with virtually no historical work. To build on this the Company has committed to a comprehensive RC drilling programme which will test several large areas based on work completed by the Company and earlier work by Western Mining Corporation. The Company is targeting large +5m ounce deposits and clusters of several camp-type +1m ounce gold discoveries.
The total number of drill holes and metres to be drilled will be dependent on results received and mineralisation intersected, but will initially consist of approximately 30 RC holes for 6,000m.
To support the potential of the project, Greatland has made application for an additional three contiguous licences covering 775 square kilometres of greenstone taking the Company's total project area to over 1,000 square kilometres and covering more than 120km of strike of gold prospective rocks.
Additional information on the Ernest Giles project can be found on the Company web site at www.greatlandgold.com/projects
Competent Person:
Information in this announcement that relates to exploration results is based on information compiled by Mr Callum Baxter, a director of Greatland Gold plc, who is a member of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and Australian Institute of Geoscientists. Mr Baxter has sufficient experience relevant to the style of mineralisation and type of deposit under consideration and to the activity which has been undertaken to qualify as a Competent Person as defined by the 2012 Edition of the Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves (the JORC Code) and under the AIM Rules - Note for Mining and Oil & Gas Companies. Mr Baxter consents to the inclusion in the announcement of the matters based on their information in the form and context in which it appears.
Enquiries:
Greatland Gold PLC
Callum Baxter/Gervaise Heddle
Tel +44 (0)20 7747 9980
Email: [email protected]
www.greatlandgold.com
SPARK Advisory Partners Limited (Nominated Adviser)
Mark Brady/Sean Wyndham-Quin/James Keeshan
Tel +44 (0)20 3368 3550
SI Capital Limited (Broker)
Nick Emerson / Andy Thacker
Tel +44 (0)14 8341 3500
Notes for Editors:
Greatland Gold plc is London listed (LON:GGP) natural resource exploration and development company with a current focus on gold and nickel exploration projects.
The Company has five main projects; three situated in Western Australia and two in Tasmania. All projects are 100% owned by Greatland or Greatland has the right to take 100% ownership.
Greatland is seeking to identify large mineral deposits in areas that have not been subject to extensive exploration previously. It is widely recognised that the next generation of large deposits will come from such under-explored areas and Greatland is applying advanced exploration techniques to investigate a number of carefully selected targets within its focused licence portfolio.
The Company is also actively investigating a range of new opportunities in precious and strategic metals and will update the market on new opportunities as and when appropriate.
Note: This announcement contains inside information which is disclosed in accordance with the Market Abuse Regulation.
