Investors Take Note Of East Asia’s Miwah

VANCOUVER — A steady stream of well-mineralized gold intercepts and promising sampling results propelled East Asia Minerals’ (EAS-V) share price up as much as 70% in the first two weeks of December.

East Asia is exploring the Miwah gold property, one of its six properties in Indonesia. At Miwah, which is in Aceh province, the company worked for over a year to define drill targets through mapping, sampling and trenching. Drilling started in late May and by late July, the company was able to announce a solid hit in its first holes into the Miwah Bluff zone: hole 1 cut 1.97 grams gold per tonne over 57.1 metres and hole 2, drilled in the opposite direction from the same pad, returned 1.71 grams gold over 158 metres, including 3.29 grams gold over 66 metres.

A third hole from the same collar hit 2.25 grams gold over 143 metres, starting just 9 metres below surface and including 4.31 grams gold over 51 metres. Then East Asia moved the drill rig 75 metres southwest and cut 1.37 grams gold over 64.4 metres, validating a historic result.

Moving 300 metres south, the company then punched three holes into a separate zone known as South Miwah Bluff. Due to the extremely vuggy nature of the mineralized zone the holes suffered poor core recovery but returned good gold grades from the diatreme breccia. Hole 6 returned 5.38 grams gold over 20.3 metres, including 9.25 grams gold over 9 metres, and hole 5 pulled from the ground 3.36 grams gold over 21.4 metres.

Moving then to the Main Miwah zone, East Asia stepped out 400 metres to the east of the first drill holes into Miwah Bluff and, in hole 8, returned 2.11 grams gold over 100 metres, starting 85 metres down-hole. Several other holes from that collar also returned good hits, such as 1.16 grams gold over 88 metres in hole 9, 1.42 grams gold over 117 metres in hole 10, and 1.05 grams gold over 107 metres in hole 11.

Another step to the east, this time 165 metres to the east-northeast, and hole 12 intersected 1.28 grams gold over 184 metres. Hole 13, from the same drill platform, then cut an intercept grading 1 gram gold over 154 metres and ending in mineralization.

And the latest drill result from Miwah is from hole 14, which was collared 220 metres west-northwest of holes 8 to 11 and 300 metres northeast of hole 1 to 3. The project’s 14th hole tested an area that produced 2.08 grams gold over 40 metres in channel sampling and it returned 1.38 grams gold over 101 metres, including 1.95 grams gold over 58 metres.

East Asia’s first drilling effort at Miwah has defined a 900-metre strike length and has identified mineralization across 400 metres width. The company sees mineralization at Miwah resolving into two components: a large, thick, tabular zone, which has been traced on surface for 1.2 km, and vertical diatreme breccia feeder zones that are beneath the tabular zone and cut through it.

And recent sampling at the Moon River area has just significantly expanded the potential width of the tabular zone. Moon River is 300 metres north of holes 8 to 11 and the recent discovery of gold mineralization in channel sampling at Moon River has increased the width potential for the Miwah Main zone from 300 metres to more than 600 metres, and still open.

East Asia’s geological model for Miwah predicted that, if mineralization extended farther north, it would outcrop at Moon River. Now rock-sawn channel samples have returned grades as high as 1.78 grams gold over significant widths, and the mineralization is hosted in similar rocks and alteration patterns as at Miwah Main. In addition, Moon River sits within a distinct charge-ability, resistivity, and magnetic anomaly that extends from Miwah Main through Moon River to Sipopok, another East Asia prospect 1.5 km north.

A previous explorer partially defined the Miwah prospect with some 3,100 metres of drilling in 1997. All 12 holes intersected significant alteration and mineralization but unrest and uncertainty in Indonesia precipitated the company’s withdrawal, even though it figured the project held potential for 100 million tonnes of mineralization grading better than 1 gram gold.

In reviewing the historical data, East Asia realized earlier drilling was parallel to the higher-grade breccia feeder zones traceable at surface. As such, and supported by the drill results to date, the company expects the pending resource estimate for Miwah to carry a gold grade considerably better than 1 gram.

While it may have taken a few weeks for the story to take hold with investors, East Asia shares are certainly on the move now. After spending most of November between $1.80 and $2.20, the company’s share price started climbing quickly and by mid-December had hit a new all-time high of $3.90. East Asia has 67 million shares outstanding.