Volume 9 Edition 3 2012 - The ASIA Miner

MongoliaAltan Rio starts Khavchuu drillingALTAN Rio Minerals has started drilling at the Khavchuu gold prospectin northern Mongolia. The company has an option to acquir e 100%ownership of the project which hosts multiple gold targets and is undertakinga six hole, 1800 metre drill program.Anomalies identified on an IP chargeability map of Altan Rio’s Chandman-Yol project.Khavchuu is near infrastructur e and 8km away fr om CenterraGold’s Boroo mine and mill complex. The pr oject has never beendrilled and Altan Rio is keen to see the first holes into this pr ojectwith Boroo mine-style geology.Altan Rio’s director of exploration Kelly Cluer is experienced in the region,having worked previously as exploration manager for Centerra.He believes that Altan Rio’s geochemical surveys and the geologicalsetting show it as prospective for a ‘Boroo-style orogenic lode gold system’.The company has taken more than 1200 samples on the projectand used them to focus in on the better results of the IP survey to identifyand prioritize drill targets.Khavchuu is the Canadian-based company’s second exploration projectin Mongolia with the primary focus being the Chandman-Yol Copper-GoldProject in the Altai mountain range near Khovd in the country’swest. The company has spent Can$6 million in the past four years atthis project, including geophysics, geochemistry and IP surveys, whichresulted in the identification of seven targets. To date, drilling has focusedat the KY porphyry.The most recent 13-hole, 7800 metre program found strong molybdenumanomalies of up to 100ppm in the north-wester n sector,high-grade gold of up to 28 grams/tonne in the north-eastern sectorand unusually high silver of up 100+ grams/tonne, lead at10,000+ppm) and zinc at 10,000+ppm grades in the southeast. Elevatedcopper occurs throughout the 2km-diameter porphyry intrusivesystem with sporadic drill intersections of more than 1% copper.36 | ASIA Miner | May/June 2012