Shares
of Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. soared Tuesday after announcing a “remarkable” kilometer-long gold and copper find at
its Oyutolgoi mine in Mongolia. “There could be an awful lot more resource
there than originally thought, and that’s providing a lot of excitement out
there,” said John Hughes, mining analyst at Desjardins Securities in Toronto.

“While Oyutolgoi already is
one of the world’s largest deposits of gold and copper, (the find) is
consistent with our long-held view that the Oyutolgoi mineralized system
contains significantly more gold and copper than we have delineated to date,”
Ivanhoe executive chairman Robert Friedland said in a statement. The legendary
promoter and company founder announced that the Canadian firm has found an
almost one-kilometre-long section of nearly continuous mineralization at what
is already considered to be one of the top three copper and gold mines in the
world.

“To intercept almost one
kilometre of copper and gold mineralization in a new drill hole is a remarkable
development, considering that we already have drilled more than 1,650 holes
totalling almost 900 kilometres at the project during the past 10 years,”
Friedland added.

The drill hole intercepted
112 metres grading 1.36 grams of gold per tonne and 0.34 per cent copper. And
individual two-metre samples near the bottom of the hole returned gold assays
of 10 grams per tonne — among the highest gold grades ever drilled at Oyu
Tolgoi. “This is definitely rare,” noted Hughes. “There’s not much in the world
that could compare to that kind of tonnage. It’s re-confirmation that there is
a lot of material there to be mined, and Canada has a toe-hold there.”

The area of the find has been
named Heruga North. Heruga means “supreme happiness.”