Southern Gold commences in Cambodia

  Cambodia’s emerging mining industry has received another boost with the start this week of Australian company Southern Gold Limited’s the first-ever Cambodian diamond drilling program, on its promising Snoul gold prospect.Southern Gold said that drilling was now under way on the 80 percent-owned Snoul Prospect, which is located in the Kratie Province in northeastern Cambodia, with a focus on artisanal gold workings and new significant gold in soil anomalies.Southern Gold’s Managing Director, Stephen Biggins said drilling would continue for a number of weeks, with first assay results expected early in 2008.“This drilling activity builds on the strong potion we have established as an early mover into Cambodia in 2006,” Mr Biggins said.“To test the potential of the soil anomalies and mineralised structure with the Snoul Gold Prospect, the company plans to complete eight diamond holes at the prospect for approximately 1130m of drilling,” he said.“We have planned two 150m diamond holes to drill test this line of workings, but have made provisions to drill additional holes if good visual results are identified.”Mr Biggins said the western anomaly is located 450m to the west of the line of workings and is oriented parallel to the workings, possibly representing a parallel mineralised structure.“The remaining two soil anomalies to the east may potentially host different style gold mineralisation, as they are less linear than the two western anomalies and may possibly represent lithological control (larger volume) to mineralisation rather than a structural control.“The most eastern being a coincident gold and copper anomaly, whereas the western of the two is a gold only anomaly. The company has planned two drill lines of two and three holes to test these anomalies,” he said.