Ascot Resources Ltd. Commences 2010 Drilling at Premier
Ascot Resources Ltd. announce that, due to an unusually low snow pack in northwestern B.C., it has been able to commence drilling on its Premier property several weeks earlier than previously planned. Initial drilling will be with the Company’s portable fly drill, purchased in 2009, but it is expected within a few weeks, that the Company will have a second rig working on the property. This second rig, which the Company purchased in March of 2010, is capable of deeper holes (up to 800m’s of NQ) and will help for an aggressive 2010 exploration program. The budget for 2010 is $4.0 million, consisting of a 20,000-25,000 meter drill campaign in approximately 100 diamond drill holes.
The 2009 drilling campaign was successful in confirming the property has potential for bulk tonnage and higher grade underground gold targets analogous to the system mined at Premier (historic production – 2.11 MOz Au, 44.24MOz Ag from 8.64 Mt).
Ascot’s 2009 drill program demonstrated the presence of widespread gold potential in a number of areas and this will be actively followed up in the 2010 program. The 2009 program was largely exploratory in nature and the 2010 program is designed to follow up on these promising areas with approximate 100 meter step outs on strike and in some cases down dip to expand the gold system and demonstrate the potential of the zones. This will be a multiphase program for select target areas with initial rounds of approximately 10 holes per target area to demonstrate the potential size and tenor of each target. Pending encouraging results select areas could see additional follow-up in a second round of drilling later in the 2010 season.
Initial drilling will focus on the Unicorn area where an extensive alteration zone can be traced on surface for a strike length of approximately 1500 meters. The central portion of this zone, in the 2009 drilling, demonstrated both bulk tonnage values and higher grade zones eg. P09-040 which intersected 55.50 meters grading 1.32 g/t Au at shallow depths (47.50-103.00 meters) and included higher grades such as 4.00 meters grading 7.34 g/t Au (99.00-103.00 meters) (See November 23, 2009 press release). The initial phase of 2010 drilling will test a 600 meter strike length of this zone and confirm the strike and dip of the zone in 10 drill holes.
A second priority area is the Province zone which will be tested with the larger drill rig capable of greater depths. This area returned impressive results in 2009 including P09-29 which included 11.00 meters grading 50.51 g/t Au (186.90-197.90 meters) (See September 22, 2009 press release). The 2010 drilling, at Province, will initially consist of 10 to 12 holes to test an 800 meter strike length on this zone to confirm the controls on mineralization.
