Trek to Galore Creek worth the effort for Romios

Vancouver — The first hole Romios Gold Resources (RG-V, RMIOF-o) drilled at its Trek property in the Galore Creek area of B. C., about 300 km northwest of Smithers, has also proven to be a copper-gold discovery hole.

Testing an area of mineralization evidenced by a breccia zone showing in a cliff-face outcrop, hole 1 intercepted 32 metres grading 2.06% copper, 1.05 grams gold per tonne and 26.01 grams silver starting 148 metres down-hole. Romios drilled the discovery hole about 130 metres east of the cliff outcrop and lost it in mineralization.

Although assays are pending for five other holes, Romios earlier reported that hole 2 and 3 respectively cut 122 metres and 94 metres of disseminated, porphyry-style mineralization. Romios president and CEO Tom Drivas says he expects to release those results during the next couple months.

“The thinking is we’re looking at the top part of a huge porphyry,” he says.

On news of the drill result, the company’s share price remained steady at 13.5. Romios has about 69 million shares issued.

The 43-sq.-km Trek property is located within NovaGold Resources’ (NG-T, NG-x) Galore Creek property claims, about 8.5 km southeast of the Galore Creek deposit. It is about 2 km away from a planned and partially completed road being put in to access that deposit.

“We’re looking for huge, potentially high-grade systems near the road, near the proposed (Galore) infrastructure,” Drivas says.

Romios optioned the property from the Galore Creek Syndicate in 2006. According to the option agreement, Romios has the right to earn a 100% interest if, over four years, it spends $115,000 in cash option payments and $2 million on work at Trek and issues 500,000 common shares. The agreement is subject to a 2% net smelter return royalty.

Drivas says Romios is close to the $2-million mark and meeting other terms of the agreement.

He says next summer he would like to test several other targets on the property and continue to outline the mineralized area around the discovery hole. To achieve that goal, he says Romios is looking at various ways of financing the drill program. Currently, the junior has about $1.5 million due from flow-through shares.

“I wish we could have released these results last year,” he says. “But you have to respect the market.”