The company said this week that Elgen, which it retained for the project, began the camp setup and mobilization of equipment for an August 10 start to the 1500m program. Results should be available within 80 days.
“To be cost effective, Lucky Strike intends to drill polycrystalline diamond borings down to the first coal seam and then HQ core drill to complete the hole if desired,” officials said.
It intends to collect information including coal quality sampling, wire-line geophysical logging, lithology logging, geotechnical information from core, and data for water quality and hydrology studies from the due diligence program in the Choir-Nyalga coal basin in the central region of the country.
The 1500m of drilling will be made up of seven holes encompassing a block 8.2 kilometres east-west by 10.2km north-south on the CN Coal Properties site to explore the resource potential beyond the current drill hole pattern.
“Evidence from previous drilling programs revealed a north-eastward, 5 degrees to 8 degrees dip for the coal-bearing strata,” Lucky Strike said.
“Coal seams crop out on the west side of the property and will be further examined with a series of trenches [and] the step-out drill holes will assess the coal bed character and continuity down dip and laterally along the trend of the coal beds as defined by the 2009 drilling program.”
The property’s coal-bearing strata is made up of coal as well as shale, mudstone and sandstone.
Elgen has 25 rigs in Mongolia, 16 of which are dedicated year-round to drilling in the South Gobi.
Late last month, Vancouver-based Lucky Strike Resources announced it had started the process for a National Instrument 43-101 technical report on CN.
It retained Utah-headquartered consultant Norwest Corporation to prepare the evaluation for the properties, which include six mining exploration licenses.
Last month, the company revealed it had acquired the licenses from five privately-held Mongolian companies in a $US5.8 million deal. Collectively known as the CN Coal Properties, they are contiguous and make up an aggregate area of 13,096 hectares about 170km from the Trans-Mongolian Railway.
Under the terms of the definitive agreements, the interest acquisition is subject to the completion of legal and technical due diligence as well as TSX Venture Exchange acceptance.
The initial NI 43-101 estimates the ranges of preliminary potential tonnages between 159 to 178 million tonnes of lignite thermal coal within the 2156ha represented by the three exploration licenses under study.
Potential tonnage within and surrounding the properties, including licensed and non-licensed areas in the area, total Mongolian P1 resources of 232Mt, P2 resources of 1.017Bt and P3 resources of 271.4Mt for a total of 1.52Bt of historical resource.
