Zinc of Ireland NL announced that the Company's maiden drilling campaign at Rapla, which was won by way of a successful ballot application, is due to start next week. A total of 14 holes were successfully permitted by the Company. The immediate high priority drilling will consist of 3 holes into a walk up drill target that appears very similar to the famous and neighbouring Lisheen Mine (~10km away and 22.6mt @ 15.3% Zn+Pb) in area, geology and feeder fault model. Rapla is a typical "Irish Type" (e.g. Lisheen & Galmoy) target, where the Company expects the potential for higher grade mineralisation of greater thickness to increase approaching the feeder structure/fault. At Rapla, the closest historical drill hole, which is located ~600m away from the potential feeder fault, which hit high grade mineralisation of (7.4m @ 14.59% Zn+Pb). All other proximal holes contained sulphide mineralisation,
which the Company has evaluated as an exceptional precursor to successfully targeting an economic accumulation of sulphides in proximity to the potential feeder. The Company notes that the Lisheen main zone orebody was approximatley 600m long and 1200m wide before being mined out, which is similar in length to the target zone at Rapla being drilled. Drill core from the initial three holes will be processed and sent for analysis immediatley after drilling. The Company looks forward to updating the market on this drill program, step-out drilling at Kildare (which is due to commence shortly) and other exploration activities. The initial priority target at Rapla is a mere 5km from the Galmoy mine, which hosts a remnant high grade resource. Any success in our drilling could have serious implications for ZMI.