West Africa is continuing to prove fruitful for junior Australian explorers, with West African Resources unearthing extremely high grades of up to 860 grams of gold per tonne in Burkina Faso.

Recent drilling at the M1 South prospect, part of the Sanbrado project, has returned hits of 14m at 39.3 grams per tonne (g/t) of gold, including 0.5m at 860 g/t.

Burkina Faso is Africa’s third largest exploration jurisdiction for gold and the continent’s fourth largest producer. Grades of above 5 g/t are considered high grade.

Drilling intercepted a solid zone of high-grade gold mineralisation as well as two other high-grade zones that returned intercepts of 1.5m at 194.47 g/t, including 0.5m at 440 g/t, and 12.5m at 17.3 g/t, including 0.5m at 151 g/t.

“Both of these results will improve the grade and category of mineralisation at M1 South,” managing director Richard Hyde noted.

West African (ASX:WAF) was aiming to upgrade the inferred resources at a depth of between 350m and 500m to higher confidence indicated resources.

West African Resources (ASX:WAF) shares over the past year.
West African Resources (ASX:WAF) shares over the past year.

Mineral resources are categorised in order of increasing geological confidence as inferred, indicated or measured. By moving resources into the indicated category, it means a company has sufficient information on geology and grade continuity to support mine planning.

West African expects to release an updated feasibility study including open pit and underground mining schedules in mid-2018.

 

Featured Companies

You might be interested in