Oriental Minerals withdraws Gasado gold estimate
2007-01-09 21:30 ET - News Release
Mr. Damien Reynolds reports
ORIENTAL MINERALS RECEIVES POSITIVE GASADO TECH REPORT, RETRACTS OLD GOLD ESTIMATE
Oriental Minerals Inc. has received a technical report on the Gasado gold project in South Korea. The report\'s focus was to rapidly assess the status of a reported resource estimate at Gasado included in Oriental Minerals\' news release announcing the acquisition of its Portfolio of South Korean mineral projects, reported in Stockwatch Oct. 26, 2006, and Nov. 17, 2006. While the author of the report believed the resource estimate "reasonable," the estimate could not be verified. The company is now correcting its disclosure by retracting all of its disclosure of the reported resource estimate to focus on the key opportunity at Gasado, which is to expand the size of the mineralized zone.
Robert M. Kuehnbaum, PGeo, senior associate geologist at Watts, Griffis and McOuat Ltd., was the author of the report and made the following observations: "Because of a shortage of information, including inadequate access to the drill core and lack of most analytical data, this previous resource estimate could not be verified by WGM. For these and other reasons, it is WGM\'s opinion that the resource estimate should not be treated as current and should not be relied upon.
"Notwithstanding WGM\'s inability to verify either of the above resources, we believe that the number of economically interesting gold-silver intersections, the assay database, the location of holes and our understanding of geological continuity would support a view that the stated resources, in consideration of their small size, are reasonable. Oriental, through continued exploration, should be able to generate relatively easily a NI 43-101 compliant resource; this could include a limited program of twinned drill holes, and/or resampling drill core, if available, and verification of the database."
The technical report proposes a budget of $295,000 to complete up to three 500-metre drill holes at Gasado to test the potential to significantly expand the dimensions of the mineralized zone. Then, follow-up work will include the acquisition and verification of data generated by previous operators, to support a Future resource estimate.
Update on Sangdong tungsten/molybdenum project
The deep drilling at Oriental Minerals\' key project, the Sangdong tungsten/molybdenum former mine, continues with 344 metres of a targeted 750 metres completed to date.
We seek Safe Harbor.
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