Perth-based junior Maiden, which is reaping the rewards of its labours in the East African state of Tanzania, has registered “significant” strikes at two prospects at its Jubilee Reef project in the Lake Victoria Goldfields.
The company reports that a RAB drilling program, designed to test gold in soil anomalies, returned excellent results from five of the seven areas tested.
Significant results, including (JLRB126) 19 metres grading at 3.59 grams/tonne gold from 26m and (JLRB014) 17m at 4.81g/t gold from the surface, were returned from Panapendeza and Shangaza prospects res-pectively. Both prospects extend for over 150 metres and are 200m apart.
“There is a strong possibility that they are part of the same ‘en echelon’ mineralised system, giving a 550m strike potential that is currently open in both directions,” Maiden director Mike Griffiths said.
Meanwhile, the company continues to be dogged by the holdup in settling its 100 per cent held Famous Blue/Duke-ton project.
The option held by Johnson’s Well Mining NL (JWM) to acquire all of Maiden’s interests in the Famous Blue gold deposit and other tenements in the Duketon area of Western Australia was extended in late October for two years until September 2000.
During the March quarter, the company agreed to a variation in the terms of the option agreement with JWM such that JWM will no longer be obliged to make monthly option payments, but will continue to maintain the tenements in good standing, with associated costs currently in the vicinity of $300,000 per annum.
JWM maintains the right to explore the tenements and retains the option to purchase them for $2.25 million.
As previously announ-ced, the project consists of an indicated and inferred mineral resource (using a 1g/t cut) estimated at 4.7 million tonnes at 1.8g/t gold, or 279,000 contained oun-ces of gold together with an extensive package of tenements in the Duketon Belt.
