Orosur Mining (LON: OMI) shares are trading higher on Monday after the company said it's Minera Anza drilling campaign in Colombia found positive assay results from the first drilled hole at its Anza project.
Orosur’s shares rose to highs of 30p following the update. They are currently trading at 28.9p, up 9.06% from Friday's close at 26.5p.
The gold exploration firm said that a diamond drill hole, MAP-072, commenced mid-November 2020 as a verification hole to confirm the previous upbeat results from prior drilling campaigns.
Samples from MAP-072 were submitted for assay in November and December, but due to COVID-19, results were postponed, with delays expected in the foreseeable future. However, they will not impact Orosur's operations.
MAP-072 was targeted at a part of the APTA deposit that previously returned positive results. “MAP-072 intersected two distinct gold-bearing horizons,” Orosur said.
“The first was a thin hanging wall mineralised fault, well above the main breccia zone, returning a weighted average intersection of:
“4.1m @ 6.52g/t Au, 29.73g/t Ag and 0.28% Zn from 108m.”
“The second and more significant horizon was the main breccia zone target. The breccia zone was intersected at a shallower depth than expected, and was as a result, thicker than anticipated at over 110m. The entire breccia zone is mineralised, demonstrating multiple stacked veins, substantial silicification and the presence of metallic sulphides, often massive,” Orosur added.
Elsewhere the company also completed four additional holes with all samples submitted for analysis; however, it is expected there will be a continued delay of the assay results. The company did note all four holes recorded wide intersections of the breccia zone target.
One of the recently completed holes, MAP-075, has been drilled 90m downdip of MAP-072 and has visually intersected over 100m of the target breccia zone.
Finally, Orosur said due to the nature of the mineralisation at APTA, and despite the delay due to the assay results, they have decided to expand and accelerate the current drilling campaign. The company will also begin the process of expanding local infrastructure and operating capacity to introduce additional rigs at short notice.
“Clearly the assays from MAP-072 are very positive, and a resounding verification of previous excellent work. Delays in assay results are unfortunately beyond the Company's control and may be a factor for some time yet, however in the meantime, visual indications are positive and provide the team sufficient confidence to ramp up our drilling efforts in order to move APTA forward as quickly as possible,” said Brad George, Orosur’s CEO.