Jilbey cuts gold at Taranga (November 25, 2003)

Initial drill results from the 240-sq.-km Taranga exploration permit in Burkina Faso, West Africa, have failed to match higher gold grades obtained in earlier sampling by Jilbey Gold Exploration (JLB-V).

Still, the rotary air blast (RAB) drilling, which targeted the Thion area gold occurrences outside the main Monlouri shear zone was highlighted by 4 metres running 5.5 grams gold, including 2 metres of 10.5 grams. Other promising bedrock intersections include 2 metres running 4 grams gold per tonne, 4 metres of 1.2 grams gold, and 2 metres averaging 2.3 grams gold.

The holes are part of an ongoing 12,000-metre RAB drilling campaign at Taranga. So far, Jilbey has sunk some 7,000 metres worth of drilling, with assay results in for about half of those metres. The 388-hole program is designed to test 15 of the main gold occurrences, geochemical and geophysical anomalies on the permit to a vertical depth of 20 metres.

Earlier trench sampling in the area returned up to 16.2 grams gold over 2.6 metres in trench TR1825E and 104.9 grams gold over 0.7 metes in trench TR-2237E.

Drilling is now targeting the 8-km-long Monlouri shear zone, which extends onto Taranga from the neighbouring Taparko project operated by High River Gold Mines (HRG-T). The shear zone is home to the several gold showings in addition to the Foulbongo and Monlouri gold workings.

Jilbey has also completed a program of regional soil geochemical and prospecting surveys on the nearby Nongo Fayere permit. Drilling to test strong gold-in-soil anomalies and significant gold occurrences is planned for early December, once drilling on Taranga wraps up. Previously outlined showings at Nongo Fayere run up to 22 grams gold; samples from new showings at Soula assayed 5.8 grams and 4.3 grams gold.

Jilbey also plans reverse-circulation and core drilling to follow up on the best results from each permit.

Jilbey acquired the permits from High River in exchange for about 10% of Jilbey’s outstanding shares. The Taranga permit is situated about 8 km along trend of the Monlouri aristnal gold mining permit at Taparko. Nongo Fayere covers the strike extension of the largest arstinal open pit at Taparko.

High River gave the go ahead for development of the Taparko gold project in late October. Plans call for the construction of a mill and infrastructure on Taparko capable of processing ore from both Taparko and Axmin‘s (AXM-V) Bouroum gold deposit, 49 km to the northwest.

The combined operation would run through a million tonnes of ore per year to produce around 680,000 oz. of gold over a 7 .5 mine life.

High River owns 80% of Taparko; the Burkina government has a 20% interest (5% of which is participating).

Shares in Jilbey were off 6, or 11%, at 49 in late morning trading in Vancouver following the results on Nov. 25.