Sarama’s West African project delivers more high-grade, near surface gold

Sarama Resources is working hard to grow its existing multi-million-ounce resource, with a large +50,000m drilling program at its Sanutura project in Burkina Faso continuing to expose the high-grade gold riches close to surface.

Drilling at the MM prospect has not only confirmed the presence and continuity of the previously defined shallow, higher-grade shoots, it has also intersected new high-grade oxide mineralisation outside of the current resource.

Sarama Resources (ASX:SRR) released the latest round of results from a further 2,300m drilling at the multi-million-ounce Sanutura project which returned grades of over 20 grams per tonne (g/t) from just 30m.

The most notable intersections from this round featured 7m at 8.25g/t from 53m, 11m at 4.5g/t from 30m, including 1m at 20.2g/t, and 5m 9.13g/t from 65m, which ended in mineralisation.

These results are significant for Sarama because they are expected to grow the current oxide component of the already large gold resource of 2.9Moz.

The existing oxide resource component makes up close to a million ounces of the total resource.

“We are pleased that this most recent drilling has continued to grow the MM prospect, intersecting new, high-grade gold mineralisation outside the current resource, and also confirming the continuity in high-value oxide zones,” managing director Andrew Dinning said.

“With its multiple lodes and abundance of high-grade intersections, the MM Prospect remains the economic focal point of the deposit and it is encouraging that new, shallow mineralisation continues to be discovered here.”

Dinning said the latest results built upon the recently reported exploration success at the Obi Prospect, where extensive, flat-lying mineralisation with high-grade zones in oxide material was delineated, suggesting a new geological model for target generation.

“The MM and Obi Prospect drill results illustrate the potential for further additions to the already significant oxide and transition component of the project’s mineral resource and we remain confident that the ongoing +50,000m drill program will continue to deliver into this potential,” he said.

West African success = share price upside

For those ASX-listed explorers taking a chance on West Africa their efforts have been rewarded – and not always just with multi-million-ounce discoveries.

Continued success at the 4.2Moz Bankan gold project has propelled Predictive Discovery (ASX:PDI) to a $350m market cap explorer.

Indicating the substantial potential share price upside resulting from a major discovery in West Africa, Predictive is now up over ~2,000% since making the discovery at Bankan in 2020.

And then there’s West African Resources (ASX:WAF), which in the past year has been catapulted to a $1.3 billion producer with strong cashflow from unhedged gold production that is ramping up to 400,000oz per annum by 2025.

By comparison, Sarama’s market value of around $20m represents a “deeply discounted valuation” for the project’s resource, Dinning says.

“Even more so considering that the current drill program is anticipated to yield a significant increase,” he said.

The Sanutura project is located just 60km south of Endeavour Mining’s 5Moz Houndé mine, 120km south of Fortuna Silver’s high-grade +1Moz Yaramoko mine and 140km south of Endeavour Mining’s 5Moz Mana mine, highlighting the significant gold endowment of the highly prospective Houndé Belt.

From a future development point of view, over 4Moz of gold – the bulk of which is within 150m of surface – has been defined within a 6km radius of the Sanutura project’s 2.5Moz Tankoro deposit, with Endeavour’s 1.5Moz Bantou project situated immediately to the west.

The Tankoro deposit sits within a large mineralising system that so far has been drill-defined for a semi-continuous strike length of 16km and where potential exists to expand the resource at shallow depths in oxide material.

Importantly, 80% of Tankoro’s ounces sit within the MM and MC prospects, providing a lot of scope to discover additional large high-grade zones as Sarama recently demonstrated at the Obi prospect.

Follow-up drilling, including greenfields exploration drilling, is on the agenda for the final quarter for 2022.

This article was developed in collaboration with Sarama Resources, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.