JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Reverse circulation drilling at gold developer West African Resources’ Tanlouka project, in Burkina Faso, has delivered the potential to add ounces to its existing heap leach probable ore reserve of 440 000 oz of gold, the company said on Friday.
MD Richard Hyde commented that the TAC1166 hole at the 100%-owned project returned a strong result of 16 m at 2.3 g/t gold from surface, including 8 m at 4 g/t gold at the mine’s M3 eastern zone, confirming continuity of shallow oxide mineralisation.
“Gold mineralisation at M3 is located less than 2 km from the proposed heap leach starter pit at M5,” he said, adding that follow-up drilling was currently in progress.
The recently discovered gold mineralisation at the M3 prospect was yet to be included in the project resource inventory, with mineralisation to be modelled and incorporated in a resource update by the second quarter.
The miner stated that any additional higher-grade oxide tonnes would have a positive impact on the project economics.