HispanicBusiness

Oksut Gold Project

The Oksut Gold Project is located in Kayseri Province, Turkey, approximately 50 kilometres south of the city of Kayseri (population 1.1 million) and 10 kilometres south of the town of Develi (population 35,000). The area is well serviced with key infrastructure, including sealed road networks, electricity and modern telecommunications services.

The Oksut Gold Project was discovered by Stratex International in early 2007. Reconnaissance rock chip sampling returned up to 0.113 g/t Au from silica ledges within altered andesitic volcanic rocks at what is now the Ortacam deposit. In late 2007, Stratex made applications for tenements to cover the property and obtained a total of nine contiguous exploration licences covering 111.6 square kilometres.

In 2008 and 2009, Stratex carried out reconnaissance and detailed geological mapping, rock and chip-channel sampling, soil sampling, geophysical surveys (ground magnetic and induced polarisation), trenching, and diamond drilling at the Ortacam Prospect for a total of 3,352 metres in 16 holes. This work outlined six prospects within the project area; Ortacam, Ortacam North, Kizilagil, Buyukmese, Kucukmese and Devetasi.

Exploration activities in 2010 and 2011 included detailed geological mapping, rock and chip-channel sampling, grid-controlled soil sampling, stream sediment sampling, geophysical surveys (ground magnetic and induced polarisation), remote sensing investigations, metallurgical test work, baseline environmental studies, and diamond drilling at the six previously identified prospects.

The Ortacam North deposit was discovered in July 2011 and has been the focus of the joint venture drilling, which to date, totals 22,480 metres in 75 holes.

The Oksut Gold Project is contained within an oxidized, high-sulphidation epithermal system. The property lies within the central, eroded portion of an andesitic stratovolcano of Miocene age, which is overlain by Pliocene-aged, flow-banded, andesitic lava flows. The host rocks are andesitic lava flows, pyroclastic rocks and sub-volcanic domes. At the Ortacam North deposit, the gold mineralization is hosted within a large diatreme breccia body with several phases of phreatic brecciation. Alteration types include vuggy to locally massive quartz, sugary-textured quartz-alunite, quartz-kaolinite and argillically altered rocks. Higher gold grades are mainly associated with massive silica and quartz-alunite alteration, phreatic breccia and fault zones. Gold values tend to decrease outwards from a core of massive/brecciated silica to quartz-alunite alteration to quartz-kaolinite alteration.

Drilling to date at Ortacam North has outlined a zone of oxide gold mineralization over an area up to 600 metres in length, 300 metres in width, and is approximately 200 metres thick. The mineralized zone remains open to the east and south and at depth. Oxidation extends to approximately 420 metres below surface with gold mineralization extending to approximately 250 metres below surface. Beneath the oxidized zone, gold-bearing sulphide mineralization, comprising chalcocite, covellite and pyrite, has been intersected in a number of the deeper drill holes.

Preliminary metallurgical test work, comprising bottle roll tests on core samples of oxidized and partially oxidized material from the Ortacam North deposit, has returned encouraging results. Gold recoveries at the coarsest crush size of 100% passing 3.35 millimetres ranged from approximately 87% for oxidized material to approximately 60% for partially oxidized material. These results indicate the ore is potentially amenable to cyanide heap leaching. Further metallurgical test work, consisting of column heap-leach testing, is currently underway.