Many Peaks Minerals moves into the Cote d’Ivoire neighbourhood with acquisition of advanced gold projects

Many Peaks Minerals is acquiring a package of advanced gold projects in Cote d’Ivoire
Ferke includes Ouarigue South where previous third-party drilling returned up to 35.95m @ 3.88g/t gold
The Odienne project includes the Odienne South prospect which is on trend with the 5.4Moz Bankan project
Company to start auger drilling at Ferke targeting >12.5km long segment of the surface geochemistry anomaly within the Leraba gold trend

Special Report: With gold prices continuing to go from strength to strength, Many Peaks Gold could not have picked a better time to pick up a package of advanced gold projects in Cote d’Ivoire that include recent discoveries.

The company has entered into a binding agreement with Turaco Gold to acquire 89% of CDI Holdings (Guernsey) – a holding company for the Ivorian subsidiary party to a JV which has earned into a 65% stake in four Ivorian permits, and holds the right to earn-in to an 85% interest by sole funding any project within four mineral licences in Cote d’Ivoire through feasibility study.

Many Peaks Minerals (ASX:MPK) notes these licences cover 1,275km2 and have seen over US$4m in previous exploration expenditure.

They include the Ferke project which hosts the recent Ouarigue South gold discovery and the Odienne project which is on trend with Predictive Discovery’s (ASX:PDI) 5.4Moz Bankan gold project.

PDI also holds an 11% free carried interest in CDI Holdings in joint venture with Turaco. The agreement will trigger Turaco’s drag-along right in the joint venture with PDI and Many Peaks will also acquire PDI’s interest in CDI Holdings consolidating 100% ownership.

“The Ferke and Odienne projects in Cote d’Ivoire deliver Many Peaks a strong foundation of exploration success in Cote d’Ivoire with the potential to build significant high grade ounces in the near term,” MPK executive chairman Travis Schwertfeger said.

“Both projects are already covered with systematic geochemical coverage and high resolution geophysics that have led to demonstrated gold mineralisation confirmed in drilling.“

“Leveraging over US$4m of previous expenditure in recent years has generated multiple targets ready for follow-up, including extension targets, providing Many Peaks with a transformational acquisition with near term resource potential viable.”

“Our team has a depth of West Africa operating experience tied to multiple discovery and development projects over the past 15 years and our technical team look forward to operating in Cote d’Ivoire again which over recent years has emerged as a premier jurisdiction within West Africa to operate in with several recent exploration and development successes.”

Gold projects

The 300km2 Ferke project on the eastern margin of the Daloa greenstone belt at the intersection of major regional scale shear zones contains a 16km mineralised trend in soils with limited exploration follow-up – the Leraba gold trend.

From 2019 through early 2020, two campaigns of diamond drilling at the Ouarigue South prospect made a new discovery with assay results such as 35.95m @ 3.88g/t gold within a broader 77.6m interval @ 2.33g/t gold from 45.9, 91.1m @ 2.02g/t gold from surface, and 47m @ 3.72g/t gold from surface.

However, each previous explorer was focused on more advanced opportunities elsewhere in the West African shield, resulting in very little follow-up at Ferke.

Meanwhile, the 758km2 Odienne project in northwest Cote d’Ivoire comprises two granted exploration permits and has only seen a significant amount of modern exploration over the past year, and recently advanced to confirmed gold intercepts in drilling ready to follow-up.

Odienne South is located on the Sassandra regional scale shear corridor, which hosts the Bankan discovery along with several other gold occurrences in Guinea.

Despite hosting comparable stratigraphy to Guinea’s Siguiri basin, the Odienne region remains largely unexplored, though recent exploration success on the Cote d’Ivoire extent of the Sassandra shear includes Centamin Mining’s 2.2Moz ABC gold discovery which is located along strike to the south.

The projects in Cote d’Ivoire. Pic supplied (MPK)

Over 30km of geochemical anomalies have been previously defined in recent work by Turaco from a combination of permit wide infill soil geochemical sampling and high-resolution airborne geophysics comprised of magnetic and radiometric datasets.

Data from this work highlights gold anomalism coincident with the Sassandra shear corridor while a 2,137m campaign of auger sampling across a 3.5km long target zone had identified a more than 2km long coherent gold in saprolite anomaly, including a peak result of 6.35g/t gold.

The acquisition also includes the Oume project in central Cote d’Ivoire which sits within the Oume-Fetekro belt, one of the country’s most productive greenstone belts.

Proposed work

MPK plans to commence auger drilling at the Ferke project focusing on the north-south structural corridor hosting a >12.5km long segment of the surface geochemistry anomaly within the Leraba gold trend.

Field work for an auger campaign commenced in 2023, however for logistical reasons, auger equipment did not mobilise in the September quarter and exploration activity was subsequently postponed with Turaco’s acquisition of its Afema Project.

Concurrently, the company will also complete mapping and modelling reviews to define follow-up targets on open mineralisation at the Ouarigue target and regolith reviews to rank un-tested targets within 17km long Leraba Gold trend.

This article was developed in collaboration with Many Peaks Minerals, 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.