Following Up Mali Gold Discovery
West African focused gold company Cora Gold Limited (AIM:CORA) has commenced a new field programme at its Sanankoro Gold Project in the Yanfolila Gold Belt of Southern Mali.
The initial focus of the work will be following up the new drill discovery at Dako II announced in July 2020.
CEO, Bert Monro, said an initial 18 hole 1,520m Air Core (AC) drill programme is planned.
Recent drill results, all in oxides, include: 6m @ 1.48 g/t Au; 12m @ 1.52 g/t Au;11m @ 1.28 g/t Au; 55m @ 0.50 g/t Au, incl. 7m @ 1.37 g/t Au
Mr Monro said the programme is first part of a planned resource growth programme.
“In July 2020, we reported the discovery of a new 1.5km long gold discovery at Dako II, 7km south of existing Sanankoro resources at Zone A,” Mr Monro said.
“This was significant for a number of reasons, not least that it opens up the Fie Shear Zone as a new regional-scale, generative resource corridor trending +4km north-eastward from existing intercepts, into the Bokoro and Bokoro East permits.
“The emergence of this new Fie corridor opens up the eastern side of the Sanankoro setting to the discovery of new truckable resources.
“We remain focused on delivering a Definitive Feasibility Study on Sanankoro before the end of 2021 having already signed a US$21m term sheet on this basis earlier in the year (RNS dated 18 June 2020).
“Drilling out a larger resource at Sanankoro is the key focus of our strategy as we target the delivery of a new resource statement in 2021.”
Sanankoro is made up of five contiguous permits encompassing c.388 sq. km. Previous work at the Project has identified gold oxide mineralisation to 100m depth and high-grade sulphide mineralisation at depth; SRK’s defined exploration target for the Project is 1-2Moz gold to a depth of 100m.
A maiden Scoping Study was delivered in Q1 2020 and showed Sanankoro’s potential to be a highly profitable standalone oxide mine, delivering a high IRR and short capex payback, with an annual average free cash flow of US$23.6m at a US$1,500 gold price. The company’s strategy is to drill out more oxide resources to, in time, extend the mine life well beyond the maiden Scoping Study plan.
