THE potential to mine gold in the Irish border counties and also around Clay Lake in Co Armagh has moved a stage closer after a drilling operation verified rich ore resources in the area.
AIM-listed Irish exploration company Conroy Gold and Natural Resources has entered a joint venture agreement with Demir Export, Turkey's largest industrial and commercial mining organisation.
As part of its due diligence programme prior to entering into the JV arrangement, Demir drilled two holes in Conroy's licensed area at Clontibet.
Demir Export belongs to the Koç Family, which also owns the largest industrial conglomerate in Turkey, a Fortune Global 500 company and Turkey’s leading investment holding company.
In a statement to the Stock Market yesterday, Conroy said the drill operation confirms and upgrades its interpretation of the lode and stockwork mineralisation in the area.
The drillhole locations and targets were designed by Demir Export and all technical work was undertaken by a professionally accredited independent geological consultant.
And the board of Conroy Gold believes the new discovery of stockwork mineralisation is "of great significance" as it represents the widest gold intersection drilled to date at Clontibret.
The Dublin-headquartered exploration company's chairman Professor Richard Conroy said: “The due diligence and validation drillholes completed by Demir Export have confirmed and added to the understanding of the Clontibret gold deposit built up by Conroy Gold.
"The board believes that the confirmation of the gold grades encountered in the lode zone and the discovery of the widest gold intercept yet at Clontibret in the stockwork zone indicates there is the potential to increase the overall gold content of the deposit.
"Demir Export has the mining expertise and the financial resources not only to bring the Clontibret gold deposit to construction ready status and into operation as a mine, but also to advance the significant gold potential of the other licences along the gold trend to the same status.”
For more than 20 years Conroy Gold and Natural Resources, which also has interests in Finland, has been looking to develop a gold mine along the 65km stretch known as the Longford-Down Massif.
The company has prospecting licences for huge swathes of the area, including Clay Lake, near Keady, which it has said could be one of the biggest untapped gold mines in Britain or Ireland.
