Mako doubles down in West African gold hunt

ASX-listed West Africa gold explorer, Mako Gold, has doubled down on its gold exploration program at its flagship Napié project in Côte d’Ivoire. Mako has added a second drill rig to its workforce with both rods now spinning simultaneously as it ramps up exploration across its Gogbala and Tchaga East prospects.   

The original RC rig is on the last leg of a 16-hole campaign at the Tchaga East prospect and will move across to the Tchaga prospect later this week for a further resource drill-out.

The most recent stand-out intercept from Tchaga was 41 metres grading 4.51 grams per tonne gold from 17m down-hole including 3m at 8.16 g/t from 17m, 6m at 9.40 g/t from 43m and an impressive 3m at 16.34 g/t from 53m.

The second RC/DD drill rig will target geophysical anomalies mapped up along a 5-kilometre portion of a 23km long soil/auger anomaly running through its Napié tenement, starting with the Gogbala prospect.

Mako said Gogbala has already returned a number of high-grade hits including 12m at 5.39 g/t from 11m in one hole, with a second hitting 2m at 16.81 g/t gold from just 2m downhole and another 5m at 2.12 g/t gold from 19m.

Mako Gold Managing Director, Peter Ledwidge said:“We are pleased that the second drill has commenced drilling on the high-priority Gogbala Prospect, following the recent completion of the IP geophysical survey over a 5km long portion of the 23km-long soil/auger anomaly.”

“At Tchaga East, Mako is pleased to report the speedy progress of our drilling, which will allow the first rig to resume drilling at the Tchaga Prospect later this week. We expect frequent news flow over the coming weeks with two drills operating double shifts and [we] look forward to providing updates on all three prospects as they come to hand”.

Mako is looking to pepper Gogbala with 52 holes for a total of 5,200m of RC drilling to follow up previous campaigns in 2018 and 2019 which saw 16 of 24 holes return results of more than 5 gram-metres.  More importantly, seven holes in the program recorded intercepts of over 10 gram-metres.

Brisbane-based Mako’s Napié gold project straddles the Birimian greenstone belts which dominate the geological terrane in Côte d’Ivoire and play host to around fifty, one-million-ounce gold mines.

Mako previously entered into a farm-in and joint venture agreement on the Napié Permit with Occidental Gold SARL, a subsidiary of West African gold miner Perseus Mining Limited. Mako now owns a 51 per cent interest in Napié, with the potential to increase its holding to 75 per cent through the delivery of a Feasibility Study.

In addition, Mako Gold has 100 per cent of the Korhogo Nord permit and has a further permit application pending, which together cover 17km of the faulted greenstone/granite contact located within 30km of Barrick’s world-class 4.9Moz Tongon Gold Mine.

Mako expects assay results from drilling at its Tchaga East prospect to begin flowing from the lab in a couple of weeks.

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