Pic: Tyler Stableford / Stone via Getty Images
Golden Rim is racing toward 2moz and beyond
Mining
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Special Report: Explorer Golden Rim already has a 1.4moz resource at the flagship Kouri project, but an incredible 783-gram-per-tonne (g/t) intercept in newly acquired ground next door could be the gamechanger.
Right now, Golden Rim Resources’ (ASX:GMR) Kouri gold project in north-east Burkina Faso contains over 1.4moz at 1.4g/t in defined resources.
Kouri is connected to the major Markoye Fault system, which controls a number of major gold deposits in Burkina Faso, like Kiaka (5.9moz), Bomboré (5.2moz), Essakane (7moz) and Sanbrado (2.8moz). It’s a great neighbourhood.
The deposit itself — about 3.2km long and defined to about 115m depth — remains open, which means Golden Rim hasn’t found where the gold ends at depth or along strike.
But the mineralisation appears to extend next door:
So in June, Golden Rim acquired the neighbouring Goueli and Margou licences for 71.1m shares and $US91,500 cash, which expanded the size of its landholding substantially from 58sqkm to 245sqkm.
Golden Rim’s control over the gold-rich Samira Hill shear zone also increased from 16km to 40km.
Golden Rim was planning to drill where the Kouri mineralisation extended into the newly acquired permits, which had not been subjected to systematic exploration.
In fact, the majority of the permit areas remained completely unexplored.
“Our original reason for buying that ground was our current resource abuts our eastern boundary and we were looking to extend it directly into the ground next door,” managing director Craig Mackay told Stockhead.
“That was going to be the first place we drilled, but we ended up finding these artisanal workings, about 10km into the ground next door.”
These workings were granite hosted; quite different from the existing Kouri resource.
“There are some really big gold deposits in West Africa hosted in granites, so we said ‘let’s get out there and drill a few quick holes to see what’s there’,” Mackay says.
“Lo and behold — we hit this really high-grade stuff in the first few holes.”
In early August, Golden Rim announced near surface intersections like 1m at 783.8g/t gold from 44m, inside a larger 7m intercept grading 121.2g/t at the new Diabatou target.
Mackay says these are the best drilling results from Kouri so far – but he’s optimistic there’s more to come.
“I think we’re going to get a lot more ounces, particularly in this ground next door,” he says.
“It just hasn’t been drilled. We are particularly excited our first drilling program in the ground next door hit 7m at 121g/t.
“That’s quite unbelievable really — we certainly weren’t expecting those numbers.”
Fully funded for an aggressive 14,000m drilling campaign
Golden Rim now has firm commitments to raise $5.3m via a share placement and a fully underwritten rights issue.
A portion of the funds raised will be utilised for diamond drilling follow-up around this high-grade intercept, and for a systematic auger drilling program and induced polarisation (IP) geophysical survey to identify additional target areas in the new permits.
Drilling (diamond and RC) will also be conducted along the projected northeast strike extension of the 1.4moz mineral resource at Kouri, and around newly discovered high-grade gold mineralisation at the Maré prospect, 1.5km to the west.
With further drilling there is “extraordinary potential” to put additional ounces on the books, Mackay says.
“We are currently at 1.4moz – certainly we want to try and get it up over 2moz initially and beyond,” he says.
“And there’s a lot of scope to do that.
“We have the strike extents on the current resource, depth extent and then we are finding all this new gold, both regionally and in the vicinity of the resource,” he says.
“Plenty of places for us to get more ounces.”
