Iltani Resources plans to complete an additional round of reverse circulation drilling at Orient East after recent infill drilling returned wide intersections of high-grade silver-indium mineralisation.

With further drilling now planned, the company said delivery of a maiden Orient East mineral resource estimate was expected to be delayed until late September or early October.

“We have received the assays results back from ORR108 to ORR118, of what we expected to be the final holes in the Orient East JORC resource infill drilling program,” Iltani managing director Donald Garner said.

“The results are excellent, and the drill bit has delivered more wide intersections in multiple holes, of note being the intersection in ORR109 which returned 32m at 161.0 g/t Ag Eq. from 115m downhole, the down-dip extension of the mineralisation intersected in ORR103 (31m at 121.1 g/t Ag Eq. from 80m downhole).

“The mineralisation intersected in ORR109, ORR104 and multiple other drillholes remains open down dip to the south/southwest.

“We have therefore decided to undertake another round of RC infill drilling at Orient East consisting of nine RC holes (for a planned 2100m drilled).”

Related: Iltani releases maiden resource for Orient West

Mr Garner said the drilling would begin shortly and was expected to take about two weeks to complete.

The Orient project is part of Iltani’s Herberton project in North Queensland.

Highlights from recent drilling include:

• ORR109 intersected 32m at 161.0 g/t Ag Eq. from 115m downhole, including 6m at 377.1 g/t Ag Eq. from 133m, including 1m at 600.4 g/t Ag Eq. from 135m and 1m at 897.8 g/t Ag Eq. (280.1 g/t silver, 77.7 g/t indium, 6.95 per cent lead and 6.66 per cent zinc from 145m downhole.
• ORR110 intersected 4m at 124.0 g/t Ag Eq. from 49m including 1m at 292.0 g/t Ag Eq. from 49m downhole.
• ORR111 intersected 5m at 98.8 g/t Ag Eq. from 68m including 1m at 266.6 g/t Ag Eq. from 66m plus 4m at 116.2 g/t Ag Eq. from 88m including 2m at 177.3 g/t Ag Eq. from 90m downhole.
• ORR113 intersected 20m at 107.2 g/t Ag Eq. from 88m including 11m at 165.4 g/t Ag Eq. from 91m including 4m at 261.1 g/t Ag Eq. from 97m downhole.
• ORR114 intersected 8m at 190.7 g/t Ag Eq. from 104m including 6m at 236.4 g/t Ag Eq. from 105m downhole.