The Inlice project is located 30 kilometres west-south-west of the city of Konya and 230 kilometres south of Ankara. Discovered in a roadside outcrop (Fig. 1) by Stratex Madencilik General Manager Bahri Yildiz, Inlice was the first of twenty plus hydrothermal alteration zones recognised by Stratex in the Konya volcanic belt.

 

Figure 1. Quickbird image of the Inlice prospect.

Stratex has now defined a JORC-compliant resource of 262,300 oz gold (Table. 1) which is hosted by the Ana Zone, 98,300 oz of which is in oxide material.

 

Table 1. Inlice Reource Statement

Category	Tonnes	Grade (g/t Au)	Gold (oz)
Measured - All	327,036	2.90	30,500
Indicated - All	1,503,524	2.62	127,000
Inferred - All	1,979,827	1.20	76,500
Total - All	3,810,387	1.91	234,000
Measured - OXIDE	327,036	2.90	31,000
Indicated - OXIDE	307,331	2.06	20,000
Inferred - OXIDE	310,128	1.89	19,000
Total - OXIDE	944,495	2.29	70,000
Indicated - SULPHIDE	1,196,193	2.77	107,000
Inferred - SULPHIDE	1,669,699	1.07	57,000
Total - SULPHIDE	2,865,892	1.78	164,000
Indicated - TALUS (OX.)	205,673	1.06	7,000
Inferred - TALUS(OX.)	1,141,301	0.58	21,300
Total - TALUS (OX.)	1,346,974	0.65	28,300

 

On 27th April 2010, the Company announced the closure of a joint-venture production agreement with major Turkish construction and contract mining company NTF (Fig. 2) following the announcement of an initial Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on 15 June 2009. This agreement sets out the terms under which Stratex will work with NTF to develop the Inlice and Altintepe gold projects towards feasibility and production.

Figure 2. David Hall and Bob Foster with NTF management after closing the joint-venture production agreement

Following the successful completion of the production joint venture agreement, NTF has paid Stratex a purchase fee of US$1 million and will own 55% of the new gold mining company NS Madencilik, into which Stratex has vended 100% of the Inlice project (98,000 oz oxide gold) upon funding feasibility studies up to US$2 million.

NTF has been funding scoping and pre-feasibility studies on the Inlice project and, to a lesser extent, on Stratex’s Altıntepe gold project, both located in Turkey. Funding has been via minimum monthly commitments of US$50,000 since the signing of the initial Memorandum of Understanding (‘MoU’) in June 2009; these instalments will be deducted from the US$2 million prior to a decision to move to production. To date, the following work has already been completed at Inlice:

• Completion of a total of 899 m of infill drilling to define the in situ resource of Ana East and Gap Zones and provide material for detailed metallurgical test work
• 58 drill holes totalling 835 m and 104 pits completed to define overlying talus resource
• Five drill holes completed for geotechnical purposes; core samples submitted to Middle East Technical University, Ankara, and studies of mechanical properties of rocks and soils now completed
• Same drill holes now being utilised for piezometric studies to investigate sub-surface water table
• Five water-well holes have been drilled to define hydrogeological parameters of possible aquifers in proposed mine area; three contained water and pumping tests now underway
• Cleaning and construction of new road access completed

 

Leading Nevada-based engineering and metallurgical consultancy Kappes, Cassiday & Associates (‘KCA’ - http://www.kcareno.com/) has now been appointed to manage the feasibility study at the Inlice project. KCA has a strong track record of taking multiple heap-leaching gold and silver projects into production and both Stratex and NTF are confident that KCA’s expertise is appropriate to fast-tracking the development of Inlice. The feasibility study commenced in May 2010, and KCA has been contracted to complete the study within a period of six months.

In parallel with the Inlice project development, NTF will continue to finance scoping and pre-feasibility studies at the Altıntepe gold project to a level of US$500,000. For information on how the joint-venture agreement affects Altıntepe, please go to our Altıntepe project page.

 

Prospect Geology

The Inlice project is hosted by the rocks of Upper Miocene to Pliocene age (12 - 3 million years old) that outcrop in the Erenlerdagi (Dagi = Mountains) Volcanic Belt. The rocks comprise volcanics (ignimbrites, lava domes, and tuffs and breccias associated with domes) interbedded with sedimentary rocks, predominantly fluvial-lacustrine limestone, marl and shales. The volcanics are mainly andesites and dacites and are classified as high-K calc-alkaline series rocks. Their formation has been related to northward subduction of the African Plate beneath Anatolia along the Cyprean Arc.The immediate host rocks of the gold mineralization at Inlice are relatively massive homogenous andesitic volcanic rocks forming a dome complex. Andesitic tuffs and agglomerates have been recorded in the wider licence area.

The gold mineralization occurs in silica "ledges" of the Ana Zone which are interpreted as steeply dipping structural zones cross-cutting the volcanic sequence (Fig. 3). They represent replacement lenses within the andesitic host rock and are typical of high-sulphidation epithermal systems that formed from very low-pH (highly acidic) fluids. The replacement silica has pseudomorphed feldspar, biotite and hornblende phenocrysts, whilst the residual silica displays vugs (cavities) representing leached phenocrysts and lithic clasts (rock fragments).

The main silica types are:

• Opal and chalcedony
• Vuggy silica
• Sugary silica
• Massive silica

Figure 3. Silica zone near west end of Ana East - outcrop appox. 4 m high. Average gold content c.8 g/t.

The mineralized system at Inlice extends over an area of at least 3,500 m by 1,000 m (Fig. 1). The NW and SE ends of the system are covered by alluvium and talus respectively and the system may be larger than currently observed.Geochemically the gold mineralization has a typical high-sulphidation trace element association of As, Bi, Hg, Sb, Te and Tl.

 

Exploration

The locations of drillholes to date are shown in Fig. 4 with schematic sections illustrating the geometry of the gold mineralization in Figs. 5 and 6.

 

Figure 4. Inlice: geology and drill hole locations. Gold-bearing silica ledges shown in red.

Best intersections have been achieved between the drill fence lines INDD-24-30 westwards to INDD-11, with >1 g/t gold values extending further westwards to at least drill hole INDD-16. In-house estimates suggest a high-grade gold-bearing core to the system averaging approximately 7 g/t over a width of approximately 12 m and occurring mostly peripheral to and beneath the shallow valley separating the Ana East and Ana West ridges. This valley ("the Gap") is probably in part related to faulting but current modelling suggests that there is only minor offset or loss of ground due to the fault.

 

Figure 4. Summary cross-section of drill holes INDD-18 and INDD-37, Ana West.

Figure 5. Summary cross-section of drill holes INDD 1, 9, 23 and 26.

 

Preliminary Metallurgical Testwork

Preliminary bench-scale metallurgical test-work was completed in early 2007 by Wardell Armstrong International on four samples using cyanide leach of finely ground material (<125 microns). The one oxide sample, grading 2.92 g/t Au, gave an excellent recovery of 95% of the contained gold over a 48-hour period. Subsequent bottle roll tests of coarse oxide material (<12 mm) confirmed exceptionally rapid recoveries, with 92.6% of the gold being recovered within one day, suggesting that the gold would be readily recoverable by heap-leach methods. Recoveries from three finely ground sulphide samples over a 48-hour period ranged from 21% to 28%, with slightly lower recoveries recorded from bottle-roll leaching of coarse material. Further metallurgical work is now underway as part of the feasibility study being funded by NTF.

 

Environmental Baseline Studies

International resource consultants SRK Consulting Ltd completed an environmental baseline study. The study includes soil characterization, surface water quantity and quality, groundwater flow and quality, flora and fauna surveys, and socioeconomic studies. An Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is expected to commence later this year as part of the feasibility study.