Alba said the programme, including diamond drilling, would target a number of areas of soil and gravity anomalies identified during previous field work.

 

It had identified five high-priority targets from available data, including soil geochemistry and regional geophysical data. 

 

Executive chairman George Frangeskides said the Irish zinc field had been a major source of zinc production since the 1960s and hosted some significant, high-grade zinc mines, not least the Tara mine, the largest zinc/lead deposit in Europe. 

 

"Of the only five drill holes previously completed on Alba's Limerick project, one drill hole intercepted 6m of semi-massive and disseminated pyrite within the target limestone, including a two-metre mineralised interval containing zinc.  

 

"The presence of pyrite is encouraging since it often indicates the presence of base metal sulphides at other properties in the Limerick basin," he said.

 

Elsewhere, Alba has also completed the first phase of the regional exploration programme over the Dolgellau gold belt in north Wales, with 1,200 samples collected over about seven miles of the gold belt.

 

Results for the first 525 samples identified multiple gold-in-soil anomalies away from the existing mine area and not associated with historic mine workings, averaging 0.006-0.17 ppm (at a 0.005 ppm cut-off), including one sample at 0.65 ppm (0.65 g/t).

 

The company added gold mineralisation had also been confirmed across more than four miles of the gold belt.

 

It was still waiting for results from the remaining 675 samples.

 

Alba has also completed the first phase of the mine rehabilitation programme at the Clogau-St David's mine.