Aurum Resources has delivered another step-up at its Boundiali gold project in Côte d’Ivoire, lifting its total mineral resource by 6 per cent to 3.22 million ounces of gold and boosting indicated resources 24 per cent to 1.70 million ounces.
The latest update caps a remarkable growth run for the company, which has expanded Boundiali from a greenfields discovery into a multi-million-ounce gold system in just over two years.
The upgrade was driven by infill drilling at its BDT2 deposit, where the company converted inferred ounces into the higher-confidence indicated category. As a result, total inferred resources now stand at 1.52 million ounces, down from 1.66 million ounces previously, reflecting the conversion rather than any loss of mineralisation.
Aurum’s latest estimate for Boundiali includes indicated resources of 54.5 million tonnes at 1 gram per tonne (g/t) gold for 1.70 million ounces and inferred resources of 52.9 million tonnes at 0.9g/t gold for 1.52 million ounces.
The company also highlighted a higher-grade component within the broader Boundiali inventory of 1.68 million ounces at 1.7g/t gold using a 1g/t cut-off.
The new numbers build on Aurum’s February resource update, when Boundiali’s resource grew to 3.03 million ounces and indicated resources jumped 49 per cent to 1.37 million ounces.
The latest revision tacks an additional 190,000 ounces of gold onto the overall resource and 330,000 ounces onto the indicated category, with that gain coming solely from BDT2. Aurum says there were no changes to resource numbers at the other deposits in the current update.
On a grouped project basis, Aurum’s total gold resource inventory has climbed to 4.38 million ounces, including 1.16 million ounces at its nearby Napié project, up from 3.90 million ounces previously.
The company remains well funded, with $61M in cash as of 31 March, and says its 100,000-metre drilling program at Boundiali is continuing, with mineralisation still open along strike and at depth across all deposits.
Aurum Resources managing director Dr. Caigen Wang said: “This MRE update represents another milestone at our Boundiali Gold Project, headlined by a 24% increase (+330,000 oz) in Indicated Resources to 1.70 Moz gold. This follows an aggressive infill drilling campaign at BDT2 that successfully converted Inferred to Indicated Resources.
Beyond the defined Boundiali deposits, Aurum says multiple additional prospects remain largely untested.
Management says the additional indicated ounces will feed directly into Aurum’s development strategy and into the Boundiali feasibility study, which is assessing a large-scale integrated open-pit operation and is due this quarter.
With a bigger, higher-confidence resource base in hand and drilling still rolling on, Aurum is steadily building Boundiali into one of West Africa’s more closely watched emerging gold stories.
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By Doug Bright
