Diamond drilling to start at Eagle Mountain

Stronghold Metals Inc. has announced that final preparations are underway for a major mineral resource outline drilling programme at the Eagle Mountain Gold Project.

According to a Marketwire release today, the project comprises an area of approximately 5050 Ha (12,480 acres) in central Guyana, 200km southwest of the capital Georgetown and 45 kilometres from the historic Omai Gold Mine, which was in production from 1993 to 2005.

The release noted that in Sept 2010, Stronghold, of Vancouver, British Columbia,  entered into a Joint Venture Agreement with a subsidiary of IAMGOLD Corporation, under which the Company has been granted the right to acquire in stages up to 95% interest in the Property.

The diamond drilling programme will begin not later than March 31, 2011 and will consist of a minimum of 15,000 metres and at least 120 holes. The release said that one drilling contract with Orbit Garant Drilling Services Inc. of Quebec, Canada has already been executed and their drill rig is on site. As the programme develops, the Company expects a second diamond rig to be mobilised to the site by early May 2011. Discussions with additional drilling companies are currently in progress.

The release said that the Company’s primary focus is currently the accelerated development of the advanced exploration stage Eagle Mountain Gold Project. “In November 2010, the Company filed an NI 43-101 reporting an Inferred Mineral Resources of 18Mt @ 1.27 g/t gold, containing 733,500 ounces of gold (using a 0.5 g/t Au cut-off grade). More than 250,000 ounces of contained gold in this inferred mineral resource is hosted by oxide material (saprolite). The Project is on track to produce a preliminary economic assessment report or scoping study”, the release said.