Sarama Resources already has a multi-million-ounce gold resource at its Sanutura Project in Burkina Faso, but drilling continues to unearth new high-grade gold zones, setting the company up nicely for some strong resource growth.

Sarama Resources (ASX:SRR) continues to add new targets to the long pipeline of highly prospective targets it already has, providing plenty of exploration upside for its near-term plan of boosting the 2.9Moz gold resource at the Sanutura Project in West Africa.

The company is aiming to add at least 350,000 and potentially as much as half a million ounces to its gold inventory once it has completed its large 50,000m drilling program.

The latest results have returned multiple, shallow, high-grade intercepts including 21m at 7.57 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from surface at the MM Prospect that sits within the larger Tankoro deposit.

About a third of the resource is in oxide material, and two thirds is over 2g/t gold, opening the way to a staged and scalable development with a strong economic case.

These new intersections are in shallow, oxide material with high potential to add to the oxide and transition component of the resource, which currently stands at 1Moz of indicated and inferred material.

Other notable intercepts returned included 15m at 2.48g/t from 15m, 13m at 1.41g/t from 21m and 13m at 1.36g/t from 29m.

Managing director Andrew Dinning said the most recent results continued to illustrate the potential for new discoveries within well-drilled areas in the very large and prospective mineralised corridor at the Tankoro deposit.

Drilling successfully identified strike and dip extensions to currently modelled lodes in near-surface oxide material which are anticipated to add highly accretive ounces to the resource.

The close proximity of this new mineralisation to the existing resource also has the potential to enhance open pit stripping ratios and project economics ahead of any future mine development. This would mean lower cost and higher profitability for Sarama.

The company expects to update the resource following completion of the drilling program, which is the first major drilling undertaken in five years.

“Historically, we add between 7 and 10 ounces per metre drilled, so we would like to think out of a 50,000m program we’d add between 300,000 and 500,000oz, and that will all be shallow, near-surface material,” Dinning said in Stockhead’s recent RockTalk on West African gold.

Sarama has a controlling position along 70km of the prolific Houndé gold belt 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.

The Southern Houndé belt gold endowment exceeds 20Moz and Burkina Faso has eight mines in operation which between them are expected to deliver over 2Moz of gold production in 2022, and a further two mines currently in development.

Sarama plans to begin follow-up drilling, including greenfields exploration drilling, in 2023.

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.

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