Inter-Citic Minerals (TSE:ICI) said Monday that it has now begun the C$6.3 million exploration program for its Dachang gold project in China.
The 2011 campaign will include up to 25,000 metres of drilling, and 10,000 metres of trenching, geared towards further resource growth on new areas of the property.
For the first time, Inter-Citic will also be systematically drilling under the current resource area of the Dachang Main Zone (DMZ), which has only been previously drilled to a vertical depth of roughly 150 metres from the surface.
The company will now be testing the mineralized fault structure at depths of between 500 and 750 metres.
Currently, two of Inter-Citic's drills are deployed in the previously unexplored gap zone off the eastern extent of the Dachang Main Zone resource area, where early drilling thus far has already identified traces in core samples of a fault structure, in a 500 metre step out hole.
An additional drill is expected to be deployed later this week on a 200 metre step out on the Acadia Zone, the company said.
In addition to these zones, exploration during the year will focus on the XP and NR-1 areas.
“We’re looking forward to another excellent season at Dachang,” said Inter-Citic president and CEO, James Moore, “including pursuing new resources on some of the many strong gold in soil surface anomalies throughout the property, and possibly below the current DMZ resource.”
In early July, the company increased inferred resources at its China gold property by more than 400,000 ounces of gold, due to the inclusion of new areas.
The updated report, prepared by Micon International, estimated inferred resources of 21.26 million tonnes grading 2.83 grams per tonne, or 1.93 million ounces of contained gold - an increase of around 409,000 ounces over the previous report last July.
In 2010, Toronto-based explorer Inter-Citic conducted a 25,070 metre drill program and a 9,800 metre trenching program focused on expanding the resources outside of the existing Dachang Main Zone (DMZ) and Placer Valley areas. The new "exploration area" resources are entirely in the inferred category.