Aurum Resources targeting significant gold opportunity in Côte d’Ivoire
Aurum Resources (ASX: AUE) is moving quickly to undertake a major drill test at the recently acquired and highly prospective Boundiali gold project in Côte d’Ivoire.
Aurum announced in mid-November that it had entered into a binding heads of agreement to acquire specialist West African drilling company PlusOr Global and its interest in Boundiali.
In revealing the agreement, Aurum highlighted that the PlusOr Global acquisition included the purchase of two self-owned diamond drill rigs and around 10,000m diamond drilling consumables.
Significant exploration advantages
The company believes that having its own drilling rigs available on site at Boundiali provides it with a number of significant advantages, which have proven to be a game-changing strategy for junior explorers.
This includes the ability to reduce drilling costs by up to 65%, while enabling the rig owners to fast-track resource growth and reduce cash burn necessitating further capital raisings to keep rigs operational.
Aurum is set to use that advantage in the near future with a major new 4,000 meter drilling program scheduled to commence in mid-December.
Mutual benefits
The undertaking of that program will not only provide Aurum with valuable information on the gold potential at Boundiali, it will also see the company earn a 30% interest in the project as a component of the agreement to acquire PlusOr Global.
If it elects to undertake an additional 4,000m diamond drilling program, Aurum can lift its interest in the project to 51%.
Under the agreement, Aurum can eventually earn an 80% interest on the completion of a Boundiali work program, with PlusOr Global free-carried the remaining 20% until a decision to mine is made.
Underexplored area
Aurum considers the project significantly underexplored for an asset located in a highly-prospective gold play region in the Boundiali greenstone belt. That belt already hosts Resolute Mining’s (ASX: RSG) Syama gold operation and the Tabakoroni deposit in Mali.
Notably, a number of high-grade deposits have been discovered in the Côte d’Ivoire section of the belt’s southern extension, including Perseus Mining’s (ASX: PRU) Sissingue gold operation and Bagoe deposits and TSXV-listed Montage Gold’s (TSXV: MAU) recent 4 million ounce Koné gold discovery.
To date, minimal historic exploration has been undertaken in the two permits that make up the project area.
This includes 93 air core drill holes and 4 reverse circulation (RC) holes, while airborne geophysical surveying, geological mapping, and soil sampling have also been performed in another section of the project.
Additional drilling
In this other permit (PR-0808), 91 RC holes have been drilled for 6,229m along with geochemical analysis and modelling.
The results to date have shown considerable promise with 4 RC holes intersecting gold mineralization including 22m at 1.06 grams per tonne from 87m and 9m at 1.79 g/t of gold.
Historic work has also identified an extensive gold in soil anomalism.
The upcoming 4,000m drilling program will focus on targets in the PR-0808 section of the project.
Source: https://smallcaps.com.au/aurum-resources-targeting-significant-gold-opportunity-cote-divoire/
