(MENAFN - ProactiveInvestors - Australia) Balamara Resources (ASX: BMB) has kicked off 2013 exploration with a new drilling push at its 85%-owned Bogdan Copper Project, located next to KGHM PolskaMiedz's world-class Lubin-Malomice mine.
The company has received all of the necessary permits to begin a phase two drilling program, comprising an initial three holes and a further six holes depending on the results of the first three.
Balamara is targeting an extension to the orebody which has been successfully mined in the adjacent concession by KGHM, one of the largest copper-silver producers in the world for the past 40 years.
The closest operating KGHM mine to the Bogdan tenement is the world-class Lubin-Malomice mine, located about 5 kilometres away.
Lubin-Malomice has current reported Resources of 388 million tonnes at 1.32% copper and 56 grams per tonne (g/t) silver, for 5.14 million tonnes of contained copper and 21,563 tonnes of contained silver.
Previous drilling in Hole B4 returned an intersection of 8.5 metres at 0.36% copper and 11.6g/t silver, including 1.3 metres at 0.6% copper and 13.5g/t silver.
This hole is located close to the producing mines of KGHM, suggesting that an extension of the world-class KGHM copper system may occur on Balamara's lease area.
In light of this, Balamara has decided to focus the next phase of drilling at Bogdan around this hole.
Balamara completed an initial exploration drilling program in mid-2012 to provide evidence that the same Kupferschiefer mineralised zone that is mined by KGHM extends into the Bogdan tenement.
To date every hole drilled by Balamara has confirmed that the Kupferschiefer extends into the Balamara lease.
Drilling is expected to re-commence in early February, subject to weather conditions, with the entire program likely to take around five months to complete.
The first three holes within the next program will test the area between Hole B4 and a historical KGHM hole which had mine-grade material.
The KGHM hole is located just to the west of Balamara's lease boundary.
Balamara's exploration activities during the March 2013 quarter will be focused at Bogdan, with further results also expected from the completed 2012 drilling program at the Monty zinc-silver project in Montenegro where an updated JORC Resource is being worked on.
