Ocean Equities says Sunridge Gold's Asmara update supports growth potential

Thu 1:14 pm by Joyanta Acharjee

Ocean Equities said Thursday that a recent drilling update from Sunridge Gold (CVE:SGC)(OTCQX:SGCNF) supports the view that resources could grow at the company's Asmara project in Eritrea.

Sunridge Gold is a junior explorer focused on Asmara, as well as exploration properties in Madagascar.

In a research note, Ocean Equities said that Thursday's "impressive" drill results support the company's goal to upgrade the current 189,000 ounce inferred gold resource to higher resource categories, supporting the prefeasability study on the Asmara North assets, but also increasing the overall size of the resource.

The capital markets firm said the results suggest the size the of the deposit at Gupo, part of the Asmara North deposits in Eritrea, "has the potential to grow to 300,000 ounces of gold".

Earlier Thursday, Sunridge unveiled assay results from the final 63 drill holes of the recently-completed 8,100 metre, 99-hole drilling program at the Gupo gold deposit.

Among the highlights, drill hole GG-116-R returned 3.05 grams per tonne (g/t) gold over 28 metres; drill hole GG-125-R encountered 3.08 g/t gold over 13 metres; drill hole GG-128-R returned 2.77 g/t gold over 19 metres and drill hole GG-142-R returned 5.72 g/t gold over 12 metres and 6.52 g/t gold over 7 metres.

At drill hole GG-156-R, the company encountered 2.31 g/t gold over 22 metres, hole GG-160-R returned 5.30 g/t gold over 19 metres and drill hole GG-168-R encountered 10.09 g/t gold over 13 metres.

Sunridge's president and CEO, Michael Hopley, said: "We are very pleased with the results of this latest drilling campaign at Gupo and are confident that it will achieve the goals of both upgrading and increasing the overall size of the Gupo Gold deposit.

"The next stage will be the completion of a new resource at Gupo by Snowden and this will be an important step towards completion of the Prefeasibility Study on the Asmara North in late March this year."

Sunridge said that in general, these results confirm the location and grade of gold mineralization defined by previous drill holes down to depths of approximately 80 metres (Gupo South) to 150 metres (Gupo Main).

In addition, new zones of mineralization have been found laterally - east and west - as well as at depth and in some cases, these zones are open.

Ocean Equities also said that Sunridge is set for a big first half of 2012: the company is expecting to release the results of a feasibility Study on the Debarwa VMS project, which includes a direct shipping ore copper zone providing early cash flow.

Released to the market will be an appropriate valuation of the Debarwa project, including a production schedule with initial direct shipping ore copper production to ensure quick ramp up and access to early cashflow.

In addition, prefeasibility studies on the Northern Asmara assets - Emba Derho, Adi Nefas and Gupo - are scheduled to be released to the market early in the second quarter.

Ocean Equities also said resource upgrades are also scheduled to coincide with the upcoming feasibility studies.