Irish question tackled at Ennex’s Sperrin gold bet

While a viable solution to centuries-old troubles involving the Catholics and Protestants of Northern Ireland has eluded successive British governments, Dublin-based Ennex International is attempting to solve its own Irish question.

Faced with the security risk that a drill and blast mining operation would create in this strife-torn province, Chief Executive Peter McAleer has had to look for another way to extract an estimated 300,000 oz of gold from Ennex’s Sperrin Mountain property.

Located in the Curraghinalt Burn about 60 miles north of Belfast, the property contains about one million tons of 0.30 oz gold per ton in five quartz veins.

“No one has said we can’t use explosives but the implications of hiring security and having to bring them in on a daily basis would make it very difficult,” McAleer told The Northern Miner.

“Any security force would become a target of terrorist activity and that would put our own employees at risk,” he said. Although underground exploration at Curraghinalt is still in its infancy, McAleer believes the answer to this only-in-Ireland situation lies in a cumbersome machine called a Dosco Roadheader. Sperrin Mountains

Used extensively in England’s coalfields, this tunnel-boring machine was transported by truck to the Sperrin Mountain mine site where it is currently boring an 8 x 8 1/2 -ft tunnel into the Dalradian rock formation.

Utilizing a diamond-tipped rotary cutting head mounted on a boom and crawler assembly, the Dosco Roadheader is chipping away at the rock face at a rate of 4 m per 12-hour shift. In terms of speed, that compares favorably with drill and blast techniques, McAleer says.

According to McAleer, it’s too early to tell whether the roadheader will prove a successful alternative to explosives which Ennex would have used in normal circumstances, but with 70 m of a 2,000-ft adit already complete, he is optimistic.

“All the indications are that it will work,” said the Irish-born Ennex executive who spoke to The Northern Miner during a recent visit to Northgate Explorations’ Toronto offices.

Ennex is a 24%-owned subsidiary of Westfield Minerals which is part of the Northgate Exploration group of companies.

Ultimately, McAleer hopes to use a combination of explosives and roadheader to mine the Curraghinalt gold reserves but for the moment at least, he’s pinning his hopes on equipment that is relatively untested in a gold mining situation. Quartz veins

Production at Curraghinalt is expected at a rate of between 20,000 oz and 30,000 oz annually and after encountering a series of new quartz veins, Ennex is optimistic that Curraghinalt is only one of a number of deposits in the area.

“There is no technical reason why we should have found the biggest deposit in this region,” said David Coyle, Ennex’s chief financial officer. With the roadheader still on trial, he admits that a number of factors could combine to delay production at the Sperrin property. In order to get planning permission for a 500-tpd mill and other surface facilities, Ennex had to deal with market skepticism and a multi layered local government system which operates at a snail’s pace.

Since the mine is located in one of Ireland’s most scenic regions, Ennex hasn’t ruled out pressure from local environment protection groups.

Meanwhile, the company is spending $600,000 to construct laboratories, a processing plant and changing facilities to accommodate 100 miners and technical staff.

If Ennex succeeds in bringing Ireland’s first gold mine into production by mid-1989, it would be a major boost for a company which is also exploring for gold in a number of locations including Western Australia and the Scottish mountains. Cononish property

At its Cononish property north of Glasgow, Scotland, Ennex is expecting to delineate between 500,000 and 600,000 tons by year end. That would be sufficient to warrant a feasibility study, McAleer says.

Results from 18 drill holes indicate a grade of 0.37 oz per ton (uncut) and the quartz vein structure extends over a 1,650-ft strike length (450 ft vertically) with an average width of 9 ft, says an Ennex report.

In the Republic of Ireland where Ennex is drilling at its Rathdowney prospect in County Laois, McAleer says significant intersections of base metal mineralization were encountered in seven of nine holes.

The best results at Rathdowney included 19.5 ft grading 13.8% zinc and 3.21% lead, according to a recent report.

With a $22 million (US) private placement already complete, and with Ennex’s Australian (Tower Hill) and North American (Little Bald Mountain) mines producing 6,435 oz gold during the 3-month period ended Sept 30, Ennex considers itself adequately financed to continue its exploration activities around the world.