Sunrise finds all that glitters isn’t gold
SUNRISE Resources this morning announced a hefty six-month loss of £743,616 for the six months to March 31 (2011: £405,112 loss) as a result of ongoing write-downs in the carrying value of some of its projects.
The Macclesfield-based company, which has been mining various sites in Canada, Finland, Ireland and Australia, attributed over £585,000 of the loss to “impairments to net assets”.
The company has suffered the losses through expenses on a Canadian project known as Long Lake, where it had been exploring for gold but decided to surrender an option to buy the project in April following disappointing studies completed last year.
Although there was the potential to extract nickel and copper from part of the project, executive chairman Patrick Cheetham said: “This required a more grass roots exploration programme and targets are not sufficiently advanced to justify the option payments due in May this year, or the accelerated exploration expenditures that would be necessary to justify exercise of the option when due in May 2013.”
The firm is weighing up potential for a “modest” mining operation at Derryginagh, near Cork in South West Ireland, where it could extract a high-value white barite used as an industrial filler, where geological models suggest it could extract 50,000 tonnes per year.
In Western Australia, an Aboriginal Heritage Study needs to be carried out at its Cue project before sample drilling can be carried out to assess the diamond content of kimberlites.
