African Gold releases 4.93Mt maiden resource at Didievi’s Blaffo Guetto prospect

African Gold (ASX: A1G) has published a shallow and high-grade maiden gold resource for the Blaffo Guetto prospect at its Didievi project in Côte d’Ivoire.

The inferred resource sits at 4.93 million tonnes for 452,000 ounces of gold at 2.9 grams per tonne at a 1g/t cut-off.

It is based on current and historical drilling data from 29 diamond holes for a total of 6,945 metres and 174 reverse circulation holes for 14,923m.

Numerous prospects

The resource is the first of its kind for the project, which also comprises numerous other artisanal gold and geochemical prospects.

These include Kouassi – which has previously returned intercepts of 13m at 4.03g/t gold and 3m at 3.53g/t gold – and the 11-kilometre-long Poku Trend, which includes a 900m zone grading more than 0.15 parts per million gold.

Resource upgrade

African Gold is preparing to commence a 2,030m diamond drilling program next month comprising 11 holes to in-fill areas not previously drilled at Blaffo Guetto and upgrade the scale, grade and confidence level of the resource.

The company aims to hit the upper range of the exploration target, which has been reported at between 6.8Mt and 15Mt grading up to 3g/t for up to 1.45Moz gold.

Previous drilling highlights from the prospect have been 10m at 123g/t gold from 66m including 2m at 613g/t and 17.4m at 17g/t gold from 244m including 1m at 216g/t.

Other best results have been 83.3m at 3.3g/t gold from 166.9m including 18m at 12g/t and 80m at 3g/t gold from 0m including 23m at 9.5g/t, along with a broad mineralised halo extending from the surface of 231m at 1g/t gold including 38m at 4.1g/t from 165m within 79m at 2.2g/t gold from 152m.

Central location

The Didievi project is located in the central portion of the Oumé-Fetekro greenstone belt of the Birimian tectono-stratigraphic complex.

It sits within 60km of three multi-million-ounce mines with operating mills, including the Yaouré development owned by Perseus Mining (ASX: PRU) and the Bonikro and Agbaou mines owned by Allied Gold.

African Gold is currently earning up to 80% equity in the project.