Sarama Resources has struck more near-surface, high-grade gold at the Tankoro Deposit, part of its multi-million-ounce Sanutura Project, with the latest drilling results extending multiple high-grade zones beyond the resource boundary.

The final results from drilling in the second half of 2022 by Sarama Resources (ASX:SRR) at the Tankoro Deposit in West Africa have confirmed the presence of a shallow, high-grade mineralised zones outside of the current resource and high-grade oblique mineralisation within the central area of the deposit.

The results from the remaining 5,400m of multi-purpose drilling to be reported included notable hits such as 23m at 4.26 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 30m, 18m at 3.63g/t from 24m and 11m at 4.33g/t from 30m.

Extensive areas of mineralisation continue to be uncovered outside the modelled resource within the central area of the Tankoro Deposit, with multiple high-grade zones continuing to be drilled including this recently drilled zone which now extends for over 700m.

“The central area of the Tankoro Deposit hosts almost 80% of its contained metal and remains the economic focus of the project,” managing director Andrew Dinning said.

Dinning said the results received from the 20,000m of drilling completed in the current campaign supported management’s view that abundant exploration potential remained.

The successful drilling program has delivered numerous high-grade discoveries which are anticipated to grow the oxide component of the project’s 2.9Moz indicated and inferred resource.

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, established on high-grade oxide material, with a strong economic case.

The Tankoro Deposit hosts most of the resource with a 2.5Moz inventory already defined.

The central area of the deposit contains the MM and MC prospects, which comprise approximately 80% of the resource and have the potential to provide high-grade early feed for an oxide-based open pit development.

“We have made multiple new high-grade discoveries proximal to but outside of the mineral resource and also developed a new exploration target model reminiscent of Endeavour Mining’s flat, high-grade Kari Pump Deposit which lies 80km away,” Dinning said.

“The recent discoveries are expected to add to the current mineral resource, which we plan to update after the completion and follow up of the current +50,000m program, a majority of which is shallow, cost-effective aircore drilling.”

The company 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 nine operating mines, with two more currently in major expansion or development.

With all assays now back from the second and third quarters of the 2022 program, Sarama is focusing exploration on the Bondi deposit which is located in the north of the Sanutura Project and has historical drill intercepts including 70m at 3.0g/t from surface, 52m at 5.3g/t from 38m and 13m at 20.4g/t from 8m.

Sarama has identified several high priority exploration targets proximal to the resource, the majority of which lie within 80m of surface.

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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