Sydney, Nov 1, 2005 (ABN Newswire) - The great Tien Shan mountain range in Central Asia: it’s the sort of wild, untouched landscape which has stirred the imagination of adventurers for years. Many of the peaks and valleys of the Tien Shan are yet to give up their secrets, and this has drawn exploration companies such as Kentor Gold Limited to the region.
David Royle CEO
Tien Shan of Central Asia is a truly prospective part of the world. It’s one of the last remaining under-developed gold belts of the world, with potential for multi-million ounce gold deposits, and that’s why we’re there. During the Soviet period Mukhmar was the principal gold mine. It’s now declined in production, and towards the end of the Soviet Union three other really important deposits were discovered: Kumtor, Jeruy and Toly Beluk. Toly Beluk and Jeruy are in the development stage, while Kumtor, the Sentera-owned mine, is now in full production and has been for over eight years in uninterrupted production of around half a million ounces a year.
Kentor is one of a few exploration companies operating in the Kyrgyz Republic. Our approach is slightly different to others. We’re applying high-tech Australian technology to good Soviet-era data and using that in a combined way to select targets and to focus in on the most prospective gold belts in the country. We’re very excited about the fact that because of historical circumstances we’re able to take out a very large licence around the Kumtor mine, the Urtash prospect, and it’s now showing that there are many, many interesting prospective sites within that licence.
Like many of the great gold trends of the world, the Kumtor trend is controlled by a major fault zone, and black carbonaceous rocks that host the ore. They extend for over 80 kilometres into Kentor’s ground. Now within that structural trend, we’ve got numerous targets that have been identified at places like Akbel Choloktor and Kui Lu, where surface indications would suggest that we’ve got a very high potential of discovering further gold deposits along that trend.
The projects are at various stages of development. The two most advanced projects are at Akbel Choloktor in the Urtash licence, and also at Uzabaluk. Those projects are at drill stage. We’re currently drilling at Akbel at this time. We’re into the third drill hole and that programme’s progressing.
Elsewhere we have numerous pre-drill projects that are being evaluated to get to drill stage, and in addition to that the generative programme will generate in any one year scores of targets which will be systematically tested, and we will acquire the best of them with tenements. At Akbel we’ve identified at least ten combined geophysical/geochemical targets for testing. We’ve initially drill tested one of those, and we’re encouraged by the fact that the Kumtor mine strategraphy appears to extend into Kentor’s tenement and that strategraphy is both carbonaceous and pyoritic. The pyorite is a common associate with gold at Kumtor and we’re encouraged by that.
Currently the programme at Akbel Choloktor is focused entirely on drilling activity. We’ve winterised the camp and the drill rig for a programme extending well into winter, and at this stage everything is functioning extremely well and we’re bedding down the programme, getting to understand the issues of drilling in sub-zero weather.
Kentor is very encouraged by the infrastructure available to it in the Kyrgyz Republic. For example, at Urtash, our main project, we have an all-weather road going within nearly ten kilometres of our project, as well as a major power line. There is abundant available water in that area, and we plan to put our own all-weather road in during 2006, into the camp off the main Kumtor mine road. Elsewhere, the projects are reasonably located with respect to road access. In Bishkek and surrounding areas we have many supplies available to us, and there is an internationally-recognised laboratory, the Alex Stewart laboratory, at Karabalta that the company uses as well.
The outlook for Kentor is very bright indeed. Particularly at Urtash, where every step we’ve taken has continued to upgrade the property. We’re particularly encouraged by what we’re seeing in the recent drilling, how the assays were weighted. It’s a question of time, and we think that by persistence it will be rewarded with a discovery of a multi-million ounce deposit.
About KGL Resources Ltd
KGL Resources (ASX:KGL) is an Australian mineral exploration company focussed on increasing the high grade Resource at the Jervois Copper-Silver-Gold Project in the Northern Territory and developing it into a multi-metal mine.
