Big African gold hit to supercharge Aurum resource estimate

Aurum Resources’ diamond drilling efforts at the company’s Boundiali gold project in West Africa’s northern Côte d'Ivoire have continued to deliver big gold hits – this time 74m grading 1 gram per tonne from 167m.  

The latest set of assays out of Boundiali included a 1m high-grade chunk going 24.73g/t as management chases shallow mineralisation at depth, with three diamond rigs working to support a maiden mineral resource estimate slated for later this year.

The 74m hit also included a 6m interval grading 3.31g/t gold and an 8m section at 1.51g/t from 71m. Another diamond hole went as high as 33m at 0.84g/t gold from 146m including 1m at 9.95g/t, while a different hole threw up a 1m hit grading 10.01g/t from 71m.

Aurum says the true width of the hits is about 70 per cent to 80 per cent of the reported downhole lengths. All of the results are from the company’s BD Target 2, which now measures 1.7km long and 1km in width.

Management says the assays are from holes spaced at 100m and confirm the mineralised system is open along strike and at depth. As Aurum’s rigs continue to spin the drill bit, more assays are flowing to the market, with the next batch expected in the coming weeks.

Aurum Resources managing director Caigen Wang said: “These new shallow, wide gold intercepts prove the gold system continues in fresh rock underneath shallow oxide RC drilling (30 holes for 2057m) drilled by previous explorers. Follow-up drilling is required to chase the system along strike and at depth as well as areas where our team has identified artisanal workings”.

Thick gold hits are not new at Boundiali. BD Target 2 is about 6km to the north of BD Target 1, where Aurum reported 73m grading 2.15g/t gold from 172m and earlier this month revealed a 90m-thick hit going 1.16g/t from 143m.

Management says both BD targets sit on a bigger 13km-long by 3km-wide gold mineralised corridor – the majority of which is yet to be tested. The company says mineralisation at both BD targets appears to be controlled by north-south-trending structures.

Boundiali is within the same greenstone belt as the Syama and Sissingué gold mines to the north. Syama is sitting on a massive 11.5 million-ounce gold resource and Sissingué has 1.4 million ounces. 

To the northeast of Aurum’s ground, the Tongon deposit holds a 5 million-ounce resource and Montage Gold is sitting on 4.5 million ounces at its Koné project to the south.

The operational tempo shows no sign of slowing for Aurum as its rigs continue to work the ground, putting down about 6km of hole per month – which will keep the labs busy.

The rampaging gold price is also still holding strong, trading at about $3535 per ounce Friday afternoon Perth time, as China remains firmly in control of the global price action for the yellow metal. China’s private sector imported 543 tonnes of gold in this year’s first quarter and the People’s Bank of China added another 189 tonnes of its own – and that doesn’t include covert purchasing.

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