Tournigan explores in Northern Ireland and El Salvador

Vancouver — Tournigan Gold (TVC-V) has raised $1.25 million in a brokered, short-form financing, with proceeds earmarked for projects in Northern Ireland and El Salvador.

The company placed 5 million units priced at 25 apiece. A unit consists of one share and one transferable share purchase warrant. Two share purchase warrants can be exercised to purchase one share at 40 for one year. At the beginning of the year, Tournigan had 15.7 million shares fully diluted.

The junior recently began rehabilitating underground workings at the Curraghinalt property in Northern Ireland. The property hosts the Curraghinalt gold deposit, which represents a mesothermal gold quartz vein system with an inferred resource of 468,097 tonnes grading 16.96 grams gold per tonne, equivalent to 230,000 contained ounces. Tournigan believes this resource can be brought into production in the short term and increased with further drilling.

Curraghinalt is on a small part of the Tyrone licences, northeast of the town of Omagh. The two projects cover a total area of 346 sq. km. Previous exploration included 2,800 metres of trenching, 17,800 metres of drilling and 700 metres of underground development.

Gold mineralization at Curraghinalt is associated with high-grade mesothermal quartz-sulphide vein systems hosted in Dalradian metasediments. Farther north are numerous occurrences of quartz-sulphide-gold vein mineralization with gold values ranging from 1 to 18.6 grams per tonne.

Another target on the Tyrone licence is the Glenlark prospect. Here, induced-polarization surveys, soil geochemistry, trenching, and limited drilling have defined stratabound gold-silver-lead-zinc mineralization. Tournigan has committed to a minimum of 1,000 metres of drilling at Glenlark.

Meanwhile, Tournigan has applied for four licences totalling 814 sq. km, northwest of the Strongbow licences, also in Northern Ireland. It has also applied for 620 sq. km of prospecting licences in the Republic of Ireland. Most of the ground covered by the new licences is underlain by the favourable Dalradian stratigraphy.

In November 2002, Tournigan inked a deal with Strongbow Resources (SR-V) to option the Curraghinalt and Tyrone gold projects. According to the agreements, Tournigan can acquire a 51% interest in the Curraghinalt project area by spending $2 million over three years, and a half-stake in the Tyrone project by spending $1.5 million over the same period.

Own share

Once vested, Strongbow can elect to retain the balance of its interest in the relevant project by funding its share of future programs. If Strongbow decides not to participate, Tournigan can increase its interest in the Curraghinalt project to 60% by spending a further $2 million and to 75% by completing a feasibility study within seven years.

By the same token, Tournigan can boost its interest in the Tyrone project to 60% by incurring an additional $1.5 million, and to 75% by completing a feasibility study within seven years. Tournigan can acquire the remaining 25% interest in both projects by issuing shares at a deemed price equal to the net present value of each project at that time.

Tournigan has meanwhile begun due diligence on Kremnica, a large, potentially open-pit gold resource in Slovakia. It has also signed a letter of intent with Australian-listed Argosy Minerals to buy Kremnica Gold, Argosy’s wholly owned subsidiary.

The agreement allows Tournigan a 90-day due diligence investigation, which may be followed by an undisclosed lump-sum cash payment.

Mineralization at Kremnica consists of unmined veins, quartz stockworks and hydrothermal breccias, in addition to the low-grade collapse material. The total in situ resource, based on previous mine data and Argosy’s drilling, is 1.1 million oz. gold and 9 million oz. silver.

The resource calculations were performed independently by Western Services Engineering. Based on a cutoff grade of 0.5 gram gold per tonne, the resource is estimated to be 22.3 million tonnes grading 1.54 grams gold and 12.5 grams silver. The mineralization is in three zones: Sturec, Vratislav and Wolf. More than 85% of the gold is in the Sturec zone.

Salvadoran targets

At Tournigan’s Salvadoran properties, satellite and aerial photo interpretations are under way.

Tournigan inked a deal with Brett Resources (BRN-V) last September for an option to acquire interests in two gold properties in El Salvador, namely El Potosi and Cerro Pedernal.

The junior can acquire a 100% interest in El Potosi by paying a total of US$1.4 million over four years. Brett retains a 1% net smelter royalty on production in excess of 200,000 ounces.

The 48 sq. km El Potosi concession is 90 km east of San Salvador, in historic workings where about 60,000 oz. gold were produced. Grades ranged from 18 to 30 grams per ton over widths of 1-3 metres.

Tournigan believes El Potosi has the potential to host more high-grade gold-silver vein mineralization, and that this could be mined by low-cost underground methods.

Tournigan can earn a 60% interest in the Cerro Pedernal concession by spending at least US$500,000 over four years.

The 50-sq.-km Cerro Pedernal project, 60 km north of San Salvador, covers extensive Tertiary-aged volcanic and sedimentary rocks that host high-level, low-sulphidation epithermal silicification and alteration. Tournigan believes that the property has potential for hosting a large bulk-minable gold deposit similar to Glamis Gold’s Cerro Blanco deposit, 40 km to the west in Guatemala.