DMMR grants KEFI first (of 21) licenses in Saudi Arabia

17th Jun 2011 13:27

AIM-quoted gold and copper exploration company KEFI Minerals has today announced that the Saudi Deputy Ministry for Mineral Resources (DMMR) has granted its first mineral exploration licence, in Saudi Arabia, to the Gold & Minerals (G&M) joint venture.KEFI Minerals has a 40% interest in the G&M joint venture and is the operating partner. To date the company has lodged a total of 21 exploration licence applications (ELAs) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that cover an area of approximately 1,419 square kilometres.This inaugural licence for the Selib North Project covers favourable fault structures and quartz-carbonate veined alteration zones and contains evidence of ancient hard rock and alluvial workings for gold.Management has also informed that the G&M joint venture will now commence surface exploration programmes, with the aim of generating targets for drill testing. Limited rock chip sampling of the area, returned results of up to 2.0g/t gold and 3.7g/t silver from quartz-carbonate vein zones located within the Licence and numerous ancient alluvial and elluvial gold workings are located in the licence area.The licence is renewable for up to five years and gives G&M the exclusive right to explore the 75 square kilometre licence and to obtain a 30-year exploitation lease within the area.As of 13:25 PM shares of KEFI are now rising by 36.4% to 6.75p in London trading.AB