Conroy Diamonds & Gold (LON:CDG), the Irish mineral exploration group, this morning reported that the first drill hole in a step out drilling programme, in the north-western corner of its Clay Lake gold target in Co. Armagh, had returned positive results with three zones of mineralisation intersected. The drilling programme follows previous positive gold results which demonstrated the presence of a broad zone of gold mineralisation. The step out drilling is ongoing and further holes are planned.

The first drill hole was an inclined hole, which was 94.4 metres in length to a vertical depth of approximately 67 metres, intersected 4 metres of 2.29 grams per ton (g/t) gold from 12 metres. This was followed by 3 metres of 1.53g/t gold from 38 metres followed by a 24 metres intersection of 0.49g/t gold and 0.6g/t silver from 47 metres, including 3 metres from 48.5 metres which averaged 2.74g/t gold and 0.6g/t silver. 31 metres out of the 94.4 metres drilled contained gold mineralisation.

The 24 metres zone of mineralisation in this hole occurred in a sequence of argillites with quartz stockwork and is approximately 65 metres away from similar material encountered in drilling earlier this year and over 350 metres away from similar stockwork material seen in outcrop.

The Clay Lake anomaly covers an area of about 141 hectares and has returned the highest gold-in-soil values ever recorded by the Conroy on its Irish exploration licences. It is larger than that at Clontibret (125ha), 7km to the south-west, where the company has established a JORC-compliant gold resource of over 1 million ounces on only 20% of the target.

Commenting on the results, the company’s chairman, Professor Richard Conroy said: “These are excellent results from Clay Lake. They show we are starting to see continuity of the stockwork, which will help to build a resource in this area which we believe to be even more prospective than Clontibret. Also, having a drill hole with nearly one third of it in mineralisation is extremely encouraging.”

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