Aurum renews licence for high-grade Côte d'Ivoire gold show

Aurum Resources has secured the renewal of its Boundiali South (BST) exploration licence, which hosts its advanced high-grade Nyangboue gold deposit, in the centre-north of the prospective West African country of Côte d'Ivoire.

Boundiali South is one of four exploration tenements comprising the company's Boundiali gold project and hosts three prime gold prospects – Gbemou, Nyangboue and Nyangboue South.

Aurum is earning into 100 per cent of the 167.34-square-kilometre tenement following the March signing of an agreement to acquire the ground – which sits just off the south end of its Boundiali gold project – from vendor Predictive Discovery Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI). PDCI is 89 per cent-owned by Turaco Gold and 11 per cent-owned by Predictive Discovery.

To satisfy the deal proposed by Turaco, Aurum must pay either $800,000 in cash or up to $1.2 million worth of its shares.

Nyangboue is the most advanced exploration gold play within Aurum’s broader Boundiali project. The BST licence was renewed by Côte d’Ivoire’s Mining, Oil and Energy Ministry on August 19.

Aurum Resources managing director Dr Caigen Wang said: “We are pleased to announce that the renewal of the advanced BST exploration licence has been approved by Côte d’Ivoire’s Ministre des Mines, Petrole et Energie. This advanced tenement hosts the high-grade Nyangboue deposit  and we are just waiting on sign-off from the Minister for Forest and Water to begin step-back diamond drilling to test for depth extensions of these high-grade shoots.”

The company says it already has two additional diamond drill rigs set to arrive at Nyangboue within a week. The extra rigs will bring its fleet to six, which will increase the drilling rate to about 10,000m per month, with a targeted total of 45,000m for the year.

Following the licence renewal, the approvals process for exploration drilling is moving ahead, with final ministerial sign-off anticipated within weeks. Aurum expects to turn the key on a drilling campaign immediately after receiving the required approvals for its intended operations within a classified forest, which covers less than half of the exploration licence.

Boundiali South has delivered significant high-grade gold results to various explorers during at least the previous eight years, including 20m at 10.45 grams per tonne gold from 38m and 30m going 8.3g/t from 39m. Other results include 28m running 4.04g/t from 3m with 6m at 3.29g/t from 47m and 9m running 7.9g/t gold from 99m.

Previous surface sampling has involved more than 5700 soil samples that have produced somewhat startling gold anomalism up to 9964 parts per billion and defined three major anomalous trends that remain open and incompletely tested.

The high-grade zone defined by drilling to date is fully contained within a distinct 100ppb gold contour.

The soil gold anomalism at Nyangboue extends for more than 6km of strike, while at Nyangboue South, it stretches through a 2km strike and at Gbemou it has been defined along a strike exceeding 1.5km. Aurum says the gold mineralisation is associated with quartz veins, which often contain visible gold.

The project’s development will be further assisted by the existence of a comprehensive historical database that comprises 21,056m of air-core (AC) drilling, 1658m of reverse-circulation (RC) drilling for diamond tails, 17,975m of RC drilling and 1771m of diamond drilling.

The company is now constructing a new exploration camp at the project, which it expects to have ready within two months and it is likely to lead to reduced costs and improved efficiencies. It will be a strategically-located base for its exploration activities, assisting with coordination, logistics and operational oversight as it works towards a maiden mineral resource estimate for the project.

The new camp infrastructure will include bulk fuel storage and a water-bore and tower to improve storage capacity and pressure. Aurum is also working on obtaining grid power.

Aurum says it is well-funded to continue its aggressive exploration program, with about $20 million in the kitty aimed at accelerating its drilling, building on encouraging results to date and addressing its goal of a maiden JORC mineral resource estimate by the end of the year.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au