TWO companies, who have been working together to drill for gold in Straiton, are expected to establish the extent of reserves in the South Ayrshire village. 

In January 2016, Northern Ireland’s GreenOre Gold PLC announced they had acquired land near Straiton which they intended to explore as they believed it could hold minerals worth billions. 

The total amount of land covered was 250km sq and experts said the area had all the right characteristics to host a large scale mineral deposit. 

On Thursday, April 5, Turkish firm Koza Ltd, announced they would be ‘working to establish the extent of the reserve’ after drilling intersected ‘significant gold grades’ throughout 2017.

The organisations carried out 4,000 metres of drilling for gold in Straiton.
They had a $1 million programme following the success of a project in Aberdeenshire last year. 

Koza Ltd said: “The plan is now to work on establishing the extent of the reserve after the 2017 drilling intersected ‘significant gold grades’. 

This is the latest after the gold was discovered three years ago and the location was top secret. 

In 2015, our sister paper The National told how ‘vast deposits of gold were also found at a secret location in the hills of South Ayrshire’. 

Mineral exploration teams said they uncovered a “major find” worth up to £2.5 billion near Straiton.

The find lay a few miles from the village and gold exploration experts from GreenOre believed that up to 3.5 million ounces could be extracted from rock.

Koza Ltd intends to expand its operation and continue drilling for gold with GreenOre with $1 million. 

It is understood discussions will be carried out and plans drawn up.