High Grade Results From Drilling At Satellite Deposits
Firefinch Limited (ASX: FFX) has obtained further positive infill and extensional drilling results from the Morila Pit 5 and Koting satellite deposits within the Morila Gold Project in Mali.
Managing Director, Dr Michael Anderson, said these results will inform maiden Mineral Resource estimates for these two deposits.
“The results from Pit 5 are impressive and especially exciting given their location on the edge of the Morila Super Pit, right next to our plant,” Dr Anderson said.
“When you consider that Pit 5 is just one of multiple areas within our 685 sq. km of tenure that has not been previously mined, it gives you a sense for the scale of the opportunity that we have ahead at Morila.
“We are working hard to complete the Mineral Resources for these prospects for input into the forthcoming Life of Mine Plan.”
The Pit 5 deposit is located on the western margin of the Morila Super Pit, less than 1 kilometre from the Morila plant. Pit 5 benefits from a detailed evaluation conducted in the mid- 2000’s. During March 2021, Firefinch drilled 25 holes for 1,443 metres to both infill and extend certain mineralisation identified in previous Firefinch drilling.
Drilling has confirmed high-grade mineralisation in the centre of the Pit 5 deposit, which forms the core of the planned open pit mine. Encouragingly, drilling has also identified high-grade mineralisation at the northern extent of the pit (19 metres at 4.14g/t gold from 40 metres in SE77 and 19 metres at 4.37g/t gold from 64 metres in SE74, including 7m at 7.53g/t gold).
Dr Anderson said these results confirm that further drilling may identify additional high-grade shoots at Pit 5 and demonstrate the potential for high-grade mineralisation to be discovered elsewhere at the Morila deposit.
Better assay results include:
- 19 metres at 4.14g/t gold from 40 metres in SE77;
- 19 metres at 4.37g/t gold from 64 metres in SE74 (incl. 7m at 7.53g/t gold);
- 14 metres at 4.23g/t gold from 30 metres in SE54 (incl. 2m at 19.7g/t gold);
- 8 metres at 5.22g/t gold from 5 metres in SE51 (incl. 2m at 18.2g/t gold);
- 8 metres at 4.62g/t gold from 20 metres in SE51 (incl. 6m at 6.00g/t gold);
- 13 metres at 2.96g/t gold from 24 metres in SE69;
- 17 metres at 2.08g/t gold from 21 metres in SE60; and
- 10 metres at 2.21g/t from 15 metres in SE80.
The Pit 5 drilling will be integrated with the broader Morila mineralisation model as developed during the estimation of the Mineral Resource to ascertain the significance of these high-grade results at the deposit scale.
Koting deposit
The Koting deposit is owned by Birimian Gold Mali SARL, a 100% subsidiary of Firefinch. Firefinch will negotiate a commercial arrangement to allow Koting to be mined and processed by Morila SA, the owner of the Morila mine (80% owned by Firefinch). Koting is located some 20 kilometres from the Morila plant and is 2 kilometres from the existing haul road.
Some 7,909 metres of RC drilling in 68 holes have been completed at Koting in 2021. The latest programme (30 holes for 2,724 metres) was designed to infill all drilling within the Koting Deposit to approximately 25m x 12m. Due to the variability in grade within the mineralisation, this close spacing was required to enable a robust maiden Mineral Resource for Koting to be estimated. All assay results have now been received from this programme (Appendix 2), with better results including:
- 5 metres at 11.2g/t gold from 95 metres in KOTRC067;
- 8 metres at 4.58g/t gold from 30 metres in KOTRC065;
- 7 metres at 4.33g/t gold from 29 metres in KOTRC058; and
- 15 metres at 1.96g/t gold from 77 metres in KOTRC063.
