News > News Releases

DRILLING RESUMES AT EAGLE EYE

News Report
24 June 2004

African Eagle has resumed drilling and other exploration activities at its Eagle Eye copper-gold project in Zambia. The programme is designed to test the extensive copper-bearing system revealed at Eagle Eye by the Company's 2003 geochemical and geophysical surveys.

Chris Davies, African Eagle's Operations Director, commented "Four out of a planned 34 drill holes have already been completed since drilling resumed last week. Some of the drill cuttings contain visible copper mineralization and the samples are being shipped for laboratory assay. We will await the results keenly over the coming weeks. In addition to the drilling, our latest geological mapping has revealed copper mineralization in the southern limb of the Mweze fold structure, extending the known strike length of the system from 8 to 10 kilometres."

Eagle Eye lies within African Eagle's Sasare licence in eastern Zambia. The Company's 2003 exploration programme revealed a copper-bearing system with a strike length greater than 8km and geological investigations showed that this was of the iron-oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) type. An initial 10-hole drill programme in late 2003 confirmed the presence of IOCG mineralization, with the better intersections including 33m at 0.5% and 6m at 5% copper within broad mineralized zones up to 65m wide. IOCG deposits can be very large and include the Olympus Dam and Ernest Henry deposits in Australia which are owned by major mining companies.

The current drilling programme commenced on 13 June and will consist of 34 or more holes for a total of at least 5000m. The programme aims to test numerous mineralized targets already identified and will be extended to any new targets discovered by the current geochemical and geological surveys. Four holes have been completed to date and the supervising geologist has recorded copper sulphide mineralization in the cuttings. The grades of the intersections will be known when the results of laboratory assays become available over the coming weeks.

African Eagle also plans extensive surface and airborne surveys over the prospective area during the coming months. Consulting engineers GeoQuest have already commenced geological mapping, geochemical and geophysical surveys and the Company has signed a contract with Fugro for an airborne geophysical survey, to begin in July. Desk studies are also underway including satellite image analysis and terrain analysis using the newly available SRTM 90m digital elevation model.

The surface surveys have already led to the discovery of copper mineralization on the southern limb of the Mweze fold structure, extending the known strike length of the mineralization to 10km and opening up the possibility of doubling the extent of the system.

In addition to the Eagle Eye exploration, the Company plans a short programme of drilling at the old Sasare gold mine, which is about 8km southeast of Eagle Eye. The mine operated between 1906 and 1942. Records are sparse, but at least 12,200 ounces of gold were mined from two veins 8m apart, grading 8 to 9.6 g/t. From the evidence of old workings, the mineralized structure has a strike length of at least 1.6km but there has never been a systematic attempt to evaluate the potential for a modern open pit gold target. Today, only the Sasare West adit is safely accessible and the Company recently conducted channel chip sampling in the crosscut. The main veins and the ground between them are mined out here, but the sampling yielded 0.84g/t gold over 6m in the footwall of the vein system.

John Park
Chairman
African Eagle Resources plc