Conroy considers joint-venture agreement

DUBLIN-based exploration firm Conroy Diamonds & Gold is considering entering a joint-venture agreement with another company in order to advance its drilling and exploration work at its Longford-Down Massif mining interest.

Conroy yesterday announced half-year results for the six months to the end of November, showing a loss of €144,914, down from a profit of €484,823 for the same period the previous year.

The group said that a recent drilling procedure discovered a resource estimate of 500,000 ounces of gold in less than 20% of its Contibret gold deposit in Co Monaghan — a first step by the company towards full economic assessment of its gold discoveries in the total Longford-Down Massif.

It has paid lip service before to entering a joint venture, but the recent estimates suggest that Conroy is ready for such an agreement.

“We wouldn’t be interested in another company buying a stake in the company,” said company chairman, Professor Richard Conroy, “but we could well be interested in a company coming in and sharing their manpower and resources with us. We know how to do it ourselves, but there are clear advantages of entering a strategic partnership including financial benefits as well as availing of extra labour, technical resources and know-how,” he said.

“There’s no real timeframe, but now that we have definite resources, it changes the picture a bit — especially as we’ve identified a minimum of half a million ounces of gold and the current price is around $680 (€513) per ounce,” he added.