Rathdowney intersects high-grade zinc-lead-silver mineralization in Poland

Rathdowney Resources (CVE:RTH) announced Thursday it received assays for the first 20 holes of its 30,000-metre phase 1 diamond drill program at its Olza project, located 90 kilometres northwest of Krakow, Poland.

Assays from Zawiercie Zone 1 returned 14.97% zinc, 5.18% lead, and 68 grams per tonne (g/t) silver over 4.1 metres in hole OLZ-011. Hole OLZ-014 intersected 3.4 metres grading 11.22% zinc, 0.25% lead, and 51 g/t silver, while hole OLZ-019 found 2.8 metres at 11.39% zinc, 0.13% lead, and 39 g/t silver.

Rathdowney said these results confirm the continuity of the company's Zawiercie zone.

Other notable results from the drill program, which completed 2,348 metres over these 20 holes, found 2.65 metres grading 8.16% zinc, 3.87% lead, and 37 g/t silver in hole OLZ-020, while hole OLZ-003 returned 6.32% zinc, 4.63% lead, and 29 g/t silver over 4.1 metres.

President and CEO, John Barry said: "We are very pleased with the initial results from our extensive drill program. Fourteen of our initial vertical drill holes intersected important concentrations of zinc, lead and silver.

"A fence of holes drilled at 50-metre spacings (OLZ-019, OLZ-011 and OLZ-014) clearly confirms continuity of a high-grade zone."

The mineral exploration company said its drill program is testing the grade and extent of the deposits on the property that were indicated by historical exploration, including 180,000 metres of drilling conducted by the Polish State Survey in the 1970s.

The program involves twinning several historical drill holes to confirm their mineralization, as well as drilling step-out holes to delineate deposit resources, in order to work towards the completion of an NI 43-101 compliant resource estimate in 2012.

In other news, Rathdowney said the Polish government has begun to privatize state-owned ZGH Boleslaw S.A. (ZGHB), the operator of the Pomorzany mine and concentrator, along with a zinc smelter at nearby Boleslaw. That company is working to deplete its reserves.

Rathdowney said it is focused on building a major resource base in the region, and as such, has embarked on a fully funded, $21 million resource delineation program that will see a total of 95,000 metres of diamond drilling in the area, with a completion target for the end of 2012.

"Rathdowney's goal is to rapidly advance its Project Olza, and build the next generation of zinc-lead-silver mines," Barry added.

The company also announced that it has commenced a 15,000-metre drill program at its Pallas Green property in Ireland, where it invested $3.5 million in exploration to collect over 20,000 soil samples, in order to generate 45 drill targets.

The program will test these new targets, many of which are associated with a major northeast-southwest to east-west trending fault zone.

Approximately 4,600 metres have been drilled to date in the Mallow and Westmeath-South target areas.