There is nothing quite like the thought of having a big brother with deep pockets who is equally as interested in mining as you are.
Such is the case with Perth based ASX listed junior explorer Azumah Resources who has been swinging wildly from the coat tails of Perth based investment fund and mining expert Ibaera Capital.
Ibaera has about $100m to deploy into mining investments but has been sparing and somewhat discerning with the projects that is has chosen to-date. This weeks announcement by Azumah that it will plough a massive 40,000m of drilling into its promising Wa gold play in Ghana is somewhat telling about Ibaera’s thoughts on the project – particularly as Ibaera has agreed to fund the entire 40,000m of drilling.
It seems that the partners will leave no stone unturned and no target untested in Ghana as they hurtle headlong towards that magical million ounce reserve and beyond.
The project currently has 624,000 ounces sitting in reserve at plus 2 grams a tonne and the latest drilling campaign will dovetail nicely into an upgraded resource and reserve statement and feasibility study due to hit the streets by years end.
Ibaera will foot the bill for the new drill campaign, expected to come in at around $4m, as part of its broader $17m investment into Azumah’s project over two years to earn a 47.5% interest in it.
Azumah is currently sitting on a JORC compliant mineral resource of 2.5 million ounces of gold contained within a 49.2 million tonne ore body grading 1.6 grams per tonne gold.
This includes a higher confidence measured and indicated resource of 1.6m ounces @ 1.8g/t.
The drill campaign includes 7000m of RC and diamond drilling to test for open-ended depth extensions to bottom-of-pit high-grade mineralisation at the Kunche, Bepkong and Julie deposits.
This is aimed at both expanding the current resource and developing new prospects.
Adding to the excitement, the new drilling will test for depth extensions to the 44m intersection going 5.37g/t gold that was intersected in the Kunche deposit’s central saddle zone in May.
Azumah will also carry out 3000m of RC drilling to upgrade the in-pit inferred mineral resources to indicated status for inclusion in pit optimisations.
Looking beyond current resources, the company will carry out 8000m of frontier RC drilling to target and delineate new shallow resources across the Wa project.
This will be augmented by 7000m of aircore drilling to expand multiple existing auger and VTEM generated targets and up to 15,000m of auger drilling to better define existing anomalies and identify new ones.
Azumah will also carry out up to 5000m of trenching to test the Eve, Laudetta, Danyawu SW and Kjersti prospect areas.
The 5km long Eve VTEM geophysical anomaly is of particular interest given that it displays similar scale and geophysical properties to the main Julie deposit minerals system.
Azumah Managing Director Stephen Stone said: “We have a multitude of stand-out targets across our vast and highly prospective Wa Gold Project tenure that we are confident will deliver increases in mineral resources and ore reserves.”
“Our exploration strategy has been developed by renowned orogenic gold specialist, Dr Jon Hronsky, who is a founding partner of our joint venture partner, Ibaera Capital, which is sole-funding and managing the 40,000m drilling campaign.”
Ibaera Capital General Partner - Exploration and Evaluation Paul L’Herpiniere added: “A particular focus for us this season is to evaluate the depth extent of mineralisation at our flagship Kunche, Bepkong and Julie deposits, as that could provide us with the option of adding underground production to the life-of-mine development strategy.”
It is probably reasonable to assume that if Wa does have serious depth or strike extensions, a 40,000m drill campaign should point the way, so strap yourself in and expect a flood of news flow from this one over coming months.
By Matt Birney
