Southern Arc says drilling underway at Mecanggah copper/gold prospect

Vancouver-based firm Southern Arc Minerals announced Thursday it has commenced drilling at its Mencanggah prospect in West Lombok , West Nusa Tenggara.

One diamond drill rig started drilling on July 24th and two more rigs began drilling today. A further two rigs have been mobilized for Mencanggah from Jakarta and will bring the fleet on site at Mencanggah to five by mid August.

The Mencanggah Prospect comprises a large cluster of west-northwest to north trending, gold-bearing epithermal mineralized structural breccia bodies concentrated in a 6.5 km by 4.5 km area within the West Lombok Mineral Belt.

At least 37 drill holes are planned (7,500 m) to test the strike length of main mineralized breccias and further drilling (approximately 4,500 m) will infill areas that show encouraging results. Southern Arc expects this Phase 1 program will be complete by the end of October.

Mike Andrews, President and Chief Operating Officer of Southern Arc, commented: "The Mencanggah drill program is initially focused on testing the strike extent of the epithermal mineralized structural breccia mineralization. We'll focus Phase 1 drilling on zones with better gold grades, as identified by surface sampling, and will drill approximately 100-metre-spaced sections to target lodes around 80 metres below surface.

"With five rigs at Pelangan and another five drilling at Mencanggah by mid-August, we expect to be drilling an average of 6,000 meters a month at our West Lombok project by September, with the objective of collecting enough information to complete National Instrument 43-101 resource estimates at both Pelangan and Mencanggah in the first half of 2012." (alex)