With three gold-silver projects in former Soviet block country Bulgaria, a region that is not currently the focus of Australian-based miners, Perth-based junior miner Balkans Gold Ltd believe they are a unique player in the market.
With three gold-silver projects in former Soviet block country Bulgaria, a region that is not currently the focus of Australian-based miners, Perth-based junior miner Balkans Gold Ltd believe they are a unique player in the market.
Balkans Gold, which is expected to list on the ASX today after an IPO raising of $5 million for exploration purposes, acquired the projects from a subsidiary of TSX-listed Euromax, which has significant exploration and experience in the region, and which Balkans intends to forge a working relationship with.
Balkans Gold managing director Noel Taylor told WA Business News the short-term focus would be to commence drilling at its flagship Ogosta project, situated on the Serbian boarder with Bulgaria, shortly after listing.
“In Australia, you have companies battling to find rigs,” he said.
“We have already got a rig because of our alliance with Euromax, so once we have listed we will be drilling at Ogosta.”
The project contains numerous mineral occurrences with over 90 veins known to date.
“The project has 40 kilometres of drilling and 30 kilometres of underground exploration auditing that was undertaken from the 70s through to the mid-80s,” said Mr Taylor.
Mr Taylor said once drilling had been completed at Ogosta, the rig would be sent to its Brenik project, located 35 kilometres from the capital Sofia.
The Brenik project has demonstrated the presence of at least one significant gold-silver deposit from the surface, and requires further drilling below existing drill information.
“We have enough operation already on our Brenik and Ogosta projects to get a resource immediately,” said Mr Taylor.
“So pretty soon after listing we will have some drilling results and an ability to infer some resource from the projects.”
Mr Taylor said a problem, however, was the availability of workers during the winter months, the time of year when the company were looking to commence drilling.
Balkans Gold non-executive director Andrew Parker said a high priority for the company was the translation and evaluation of historical Ogosta reports and Soviet resource inventories.
“This should take around six months,” he said.
“Because of their non-JORC status, the inventories can only, at this stage, be used to suggest potential for a significant epithermal gold-silver deposit.”
The company’s third project, Rakitovo, is not an immediate focus for drilling activities; however, the company would undertake an initial resource calculation in the near future.
The projects are located in a region close to the proven resources of Toronto-based miner Dundee Precious Metal’s Chelopech mine, and Euromax’s Trun project.
Bulgaria is looking at being admitted into the European Union in early 2007, with the country to receive 3.5 billion euros for infrastructure development.
