Luiri gets better handle on Matala

Luiri Gold’s (LGL-V, LGM-A) Matala deposit is proving to have a thicker mineralized zone than the company had originally anticipated.

The latest results from its Luiri Hill project in Zambia are from 23 drill holes at Matala, and come just a few weeks after the company released results from the same 61 hole reverse circulation drill program.

While those Dec. 2 results disappointed the market – which sent its shares down from 39¢ to 30¢ — the latest results failed to move the company’s shares price. In Toronto on Dec. 17 the company’s shares were flat at 30¢ on 23,000 shares traded on a day when gold prices and the share price of many gold companies fell.

Luiri says the results show a wider mineralized zone which could well be more continuous than it originally believed, especially at shallower depths in the central zone.

It says it is currently drilling to better delineate the zone.

Highlights from the assays include: 5.6 metres grading 21.1 grams gold; 13.3 metres grading 4.7 grams gold; 4.9 metres grading 8.1 grams gold; 12.6 metres grading 5 grams gold and 19.6 metres grading 2.7 grams gold. Each of those intercepts came from separate holes.

In the past the company had postulated that the central zone contained two wider zones separated by a thinner mineralized zone.

That model, however, was based on a single and incomplete historical drill hole, as a significant length of the data on the hole was missing or had unsampled gold grades.

But with one of the latest holes, drilled 15 meters from the historic hole, returning an estimated true width of 14 meters grading 4.7 grams gold, the company believes that mineralization could well be continuous.

Such promising results led Luiri to move its second rig from another part of the property to focus on the central zone.

It says the drill program will continue in the new year. Thus far roughly 6,000 metres of the planned 9,500 metre drill program has been finished.

Matala is part of the Luiri Hill gold project which sits roughly 120-km northwest of the Zambian capital of Lusaka.

Overall, the Luiri Hill project has 2.2 million tonnes of indicated resources grading 2.1 grams gold for 144,000 oz. It has another 7.1 million tonnes in the inferred category grading 2.9 grams gold for 656,000 oz. of gold.