African gold explorers Oklo and Azumah have announced some impressive gold strikes at their respective projects today.

A $5 million, 69,000 metre drilling program in Mali is off to a good start for Oklo (ASX:OKU) as it hits shallow, high grades up to 77.4 grams per tonne at a non-flagship project.

A deposit grading 5 grams per tonne is usually considered high grade.

These assay results are from Kouroufing, 20km from Oklo’s flagship Dandoko project  — which is also near B2Gold’s 7.1moz Fekola mine and 50km from Barrick’s 12.5moz Loulo operation.

In 2018, Oklo said that first pass auger drilling had defined a 6km gold corridor with grades of up to 14.4 grams per tonne gold.

READ: Who’s due for a re-rate? Small cap explorers to keep your eye on in 2019

This recent drilling over the northern part of the 6km corridor has confirmed these hits — best results included 2m grading 77.4 grams per tonne of gold from 26m, inside a larger 6 metres at 29.41 grams per tonne section.

The explorer’s share price, which is down about 38 per cent for the year, remained at 24.5c in morning trade.

The Oklo share price over the past year.

The Azumah (ASX:AZM) share price, which received a small 3.5 per cent bump after the Ghana-based explorer reported a massive 100m gold zone about 75 metres below previous drilling.

This could support underground mining from the bottom of the planned Bepkong open pit mine, Azumah boss Stephen Stone says.

“Subject to a full evaluation, this could completely transform the proposed, plus-100,000 ounce per year Wa Gold Project open pit mining operation,” Mr Stone says.

“The Azumah-Ibaera joint venture will now be extending and accelerating the drill programme at Bepkong so we can better understand the geometry and extent of the system and to enable us to rapidly move to a maiden resource estimate.

“With an already established 1-million ounce ore Reserve and 2.5-million ounce mineral resource, shareholders can look forward to a project defining 2019 as we continue to add value on several fronts.”

The Azumah share price over the past year.
The Azumah share price over the past year.