Conroy hopes that gold trend holds 20m ounces

Mineral exploration company, Conroy Gold & Natural Resources has said it now has under licence a 48km area which could contain between 15m and 20m ounces of gold.

The area — within the Longford-Down Massif — features “a series of significant gold targets”, according to the company. The 48km trend includes Conroy’s main gold targets at Clay Lake in Co Armagh and Clontibret in Co Monaghan, where the company proposes to establish a commercial gold mine.

Richard Conroy, the company’s founder and chairman, said: “We continue working on the pre-feasibility study at Clontibret, where we have an economic mine project; whilst also continuing to assess additional targets along the 30-mile gold trend discovered by and which Conroy now has under licence. We have established that a gold mine is viable and we are now working towards bringing it into production.”

Conroy reported its full-year figures for the 12 months to the end of May yesterday. The data showed a rise in its pre-tax losses from €427,970 to €533,262.

Despite this, Prof Conroy said the company had made “further excellent progress”, adding that management is confident as the company moves from the exploration phase into the development phase.

Conroy’s sister company, Karelian Diamond Resources, which is mainly focused on the Finnish region, also published its latest set of annual figures yesterday. The AIM-listed firm saw its losses rise from €187,261 to €207,980, but said that it had seen a year of “significant progress” with continued drilling success.

Meanwhile, Botswana Diamonds, the John Teeling/AIM-listed diamond exploration company, has identified five targets on its wholly owned licence in the Letlhakane area of Botswana. The five targets will be drilled by the end of January, the company said yesterday.