Fast approvals open door for Aurum to explore West African tenement

Aurum Resources will kick off a maiden diamond drill program this month at its Boundiali South tenement (BST) in Côte d’Ivoire to pursue some big hits from previous reverse circulation drilling, including a 20-metre intercept at 10.45 grams per tonne (g/t) gold.

Aurum triggered its renewed exploration plan after it fully acquired the Boundiali South tenement ground from fellow ASX-listed goldie Turaco Gold under a binding term sheet set up in March last year for the transfer of the 167.34-square-kilometre tenement.

Aurum has since worked closely with the Côte d’Ivoire government to resume exploration of the highly prospective area.

The tenement sits within a classified forest area that the company has now received Côte d’Ivoire departmental approval to explore. 

Aurum has also inked a protocol agreement with the country’s mines, petroleum, energy, water and forests ministries for the forest area and submitted an exploitation licence application over the entire BST tenement.    

It understands the Côte d’Ivoire government also intends to change the relevant acts to allow mining activities within the classified area. The company is confident the reforms will be made within the next year. 

The company now sees no further impediment to future exploration or obtaining mining rights for BST.

Aurum Resources managing director Dr Caigen Wang said: “With this key (licence) application accepted, the company is now positioned to accelerate both its exploration drill-out programs and vital development activities, such as environmental studies, aimed at confirming the potential for the gold resources at BST to support a future open pit mining operation.”

Under the tenement sale deal, Turaco had the option of receiving an $800,000 cash consideration or payment via a parcel of Aurum shares – it has opted for the shares.

Aurum has now issued Turaco 3,492,535 Aurum shares priced at 34.3 cents per share, using a 20-day volume weighted average trading price to April 1. The shares are valued at $1.2 million.

Buying the BST tenement significantly extends Aurum’s footprint at its wider Boundiali project, where previous drilling has delivered an assemblage of strong gold results.

Historical drill testing has already jagged top three intercepts at BST of 20m assaying 10.45g/t gold from 38m, 30m at 8.30g/t gold from 39m and 28m going 4.04g/t gold from 3m, including 6m at 3.29g/t gold from 47m.

The BST tenement embraces part of the highly prospective Boundiali greenstone belt that also hosts Resolute Mining’s Syama gold operation and Tabakoroni gold deposit in Mali. 

Several smaller high-grade deposits have been discovered on the belt’s Nyangboueern extension into Côte d’Ivoire, including Perseus Mining’s Sissingué gold operation and Bagoé deposits, as well as Montage Gold’s giant 4.9M-ounce Koné gold discovery in the belt’s southwest, where it merges with the Senoufo greenstone belt. 

Previous owners have run air core, reverse circulation and diamond hole programs on the BST ground, including the Toro Gold/Predictive Discovery joint venture, resulting in a big exploration dataset of gold-in-soil geochemistry.

Turaco Gold ran the most recent diamond and reverse circulation drill program in 2022 on an 80m by 40m grid. The top three hits from the program were 15m assaying 1.20g/t gold from 167m, with 6m going 1.35g/t gold from 191m and another 10m at 1.10g/t gold from 220m; 6m at 2.60g/t gold from 134m and 4m going 8.34g/t gold from 21m, including 2m assaying 16.36g/t gold from 21m.

A fourth hole delivered a best grade intercept of 2m at 13.57g/t gold from 30m. 

Mineralisation identified within the BST ground occurs as discrete zones of higher-grade gold - in some instances associated with quartz veining with visible gold - enclosed within broad lower-grade envelopes hosted by a folded sedimentary package. 

The sedimentary package comprises alternating sandstones and shales with minor interbedded conglomerates. 

Extensive sulphide and carbonate alteration occurs with higher-grade zones associated with structurally controlled quartz veining. The oxidised rock extends to about 50m vertically and is soft and friable. 

Detailed surface geochemistry has identified three strong gold anomalies across more than 6km of strike at Nyangboue, more than 2km of strike at Nyangboue South and more than 1.5km of strike at Gbemou. 

Most of the exploration drill program focused on the southern 2km of the Nyangboue anomaly, where gold mineralisation is associated with a moderately west-dipping, north-northeast striking sheared contact between conglomeratic sediments to the west and siltstones/sandstones to the east.

Visible gold and minor sulphides are identifiable in thin quartz veins concentrated in the sheared contact zone. 

Aurum has delivered a JORC resource of 360,000 ounces of gold at 1.0g/t gold for the BST ground, which the company included in its maiden Boundiali 1.59M-ounce gold resource estimate, announced in December last year.

Of those 360,000 ounces, 130,000 ounces sit in the indicated classification while the remaining 220,000 ounces are inferred. 

Aurum has now achieved two big milestones at Boundiali South, which will allow the company to immediately restart exploration activities at BST. It will begin with a drill program in the next two weeks using two company-owned rigs to test the well-defined northern extension of the Nyangboue gold deposit.

The program falls in Aurum’s planned 100,000m drilling program for the year and is part of the company’s resource-building program across its 1.59M-ounce Boundiali project.

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