Gold explorer Stratex International (STI) has discovered bonanza gold grades at its wholly-owned Blackrock Project in the Afar Regional State.

The AIM-listed company said the first samples of outcrop at the Black Water zone returned grades greater than 30 grams per ton of gold and wide zones of gold mineralization up to 25 meters in width.

Surface rock chip samples returned up to 60.4 g/t of gold from Nesbitt and 34.6 g/t from Oasis vein systems at Blackrock, while channel-chip sampling of the Theodore target returned best grades of 25 meters at 1.15 g/t gold and 15.2 meters at 1.28 g/t gold.

Executive director David Hall said the results "further highlight the potential for major multiple gold mineralization at this exciting discovery where four key zones have been identified to date. This fact is of considerable significance for the economic potential of all the discoveries in Stratex's newly defined Afar epithermal province."

With this in mind, the company's exploration program at Blackrock will continue apace as it looks to advance the Stanley, Nesbitt, Oasis, Theodore and Baker targets to a drill ready status.

"We also eagerly await the results from a 3,000 meters drill program at our Megenta gold project in Ethiopia , where we believe there is a potential to intersect, at depth, similar multi-gram gold grades," he said.

In a statement on Wednesday, Stratex said the excellent exposure throughout the license should allow the Blackrock prospects to be fast-tracked through to drill-ready status before the end of the year.

In the meantime, drilling of the company's first project in the Afar, Megenta, will get underway shortly, funded by the joint venture partnership with Thani Ashanti, an AngloGold Ashanti alliance.

The Black Water zone, one of four defined to date over 15kms, was prioritized for detailed mapping and sampling following encouraging early-stage results and five substantial NW-SE-striking vein systems have now been identified - Stanley, Nesbitt, Oasis, ystems are between 700 meters and 1,100 meters in length.

EthiopianReporter