Mako kicks off exploration on new Cote d’Ivoire gold project

ASX-listed West Africa gold explorer, Mako Gold has hit the ground running at its recently granted wholly owned Korhogo gold project in Côte d’Ivoire, kicking off a soil geochemical survey across the project’s two permit areas called Ouangolodougou and Korhogo Nord.

Korhogo sits in the same highly prospective Birimian greenstone belt that hosts Barrick Gold’s 4.9-million-ounce Tongon gold mine and Montage Gold’s 3.1-million-ounce Kone gold deposit. Both are located in Côte d’Ivoire, with Endeavour Mining’s recently acquired 2.7-million-ounce Wahgnion gold mine just across the border in Burkina Faso.

Korhogo’s two permits cover 296 square kilometres of tenure, which lie within 15-30 kilometres of Tongon. They also take in approximately 17km of greenstone-granite contact along a regional fault.

Mako says the fertile gold territory’s regional faults provide the “plumbing” for gold bearing fluids and points out that splays peel off the regional faults on both the Ouangolodougou and Korhogo Nord permits.

The planned soil sampling grids on the permits cover two splays, which the company consider high-priority targets for gold mineralisation. According to the company, the Korhogo project has no previously recorded exploration.

Mako Gold Managing Director, Peter Ledwidge said: “We are fast-tracking the soil sampling program with four crews on the ground in preparation for a maiden drilling program on Korhogo. Our primary focus remains the Napie project where we currently have two drills operating around the clock.”

A maiden drilling program is planned at Korhogo once the assay results of the soil sampling have been processed and interpreted.

Brisbane-based Mako has returned some bonanza gold grades from a continuing resource definition RC and diamond drilling campaign at Napie’s exciting Tchaga prospect.

Stand-out RC gold drill hits were a cracking 41 metres at an average grade of 4.51 grams per tonne gold from 17m depth including 3m at 8.16 g/t from 17m, 6m grading 9.4 g/t from 43m and 3m going 16.34 g/t from 53m.

Other notable high-grade intersections, among many, were an RC hole that went 5m at 21.99 g/t from 70m including 1m at a whopping 107 g/t from 71m, and a diamond hole that coughed up 7.9m at 4.63 g/t from 122.8m including 1m at 27.61 g/t from 126m.

Mako says 46 of the recently completed 53 RC and diamond holes drilled at Tchaga struck gold mineralisation, with 17 registering assays of more than 10 gram-metres.

Multiple wide gold intersections containing high-grade intervals have been returned from the stacked mineralised zones within the company’s resource target area on the Tchaga prospect.

Mako hopes to put out a maiden mineral resource estimate for Tchaga some time this year.

The company, which has a farm-in and joint venture agreement on the Napie project with a subsidiary of ASX-listed, Perth-based West Africa gold miner Perseus Mining, currently holds a 51 per cent interest in the project and can earn up to a 75 per cent stake through the delivery of a feasibility study.

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