Aurum Resources acquires rights to Côte d’Ivoire gold project, Tietto founder joins board
Aurum Resources (ASX: AUE) has entered into a strategic binding heads of agreement to acquire exploration company PlusOr Global and its interest in a prospective gold project in the West African nation of Côte d’Ivoire.
Founded by highly-regarded mining specialist Dr Caigen Wang, PlusOr has the rights to earn an interest in two exploration permits which comprise the Boundiali Gold Project.
On 7 November, PlusOr Global signed an agreement with Turaco Gold (ASX: TCG) to acquire the latter’s shareholding in DS Resources Joint Venture Company, holder of the ‘Boundiali North’ permit covering 260 sq km in northern Côte d’Ivoire.
Dr Wang, the founder and former managing director of $651 million market cap Côte d’Ivoire-based gold mining company Tietto Minerals (ASX: TIE), has also agreed to join the Aurum team.
It is proposed that Dr Wang will be appointed as a non-executive director of the company in connection with the acquisition.
Two drilling rigs part of the deal
Aurum’s non-executive chairman Troy Flannery said the company has also agreed to acquire other assets held by PlusOr including two man-portable hydraulic diamond drilling rigs plus consumables for 10,000m of diamond drilling needs.
“Aurum is extremely excited to have acquired 100% of PlusOr that has recently established an impressive foothold in the Boundiali greenstone belt of Côte d’Ivoire. The PlusOr acquisition comes with Dr Caigen Wang … along with the ownership of two brand new diamond drill rigs currently drilling on PlusOr’s JV project within the exploration permit PR-0893.”
In consideration for the acquisition, Aurum has agreed to issue the PlusOr vendor 25,387,880 fully paid ordinary shares in the company, subject to shareholder approval.
Boundiali’s golden potential
The project is located in the highly prospective Boundiali greenstone belt, a significant gold play that also hosts Resolute Mining’s (ASX: RSG) Syama gold operation and Tabakoroni deposit in Mali.
In the Côte d’Ivoire section of the belt’s southern extension, several high-grade deposits have been discovered including Perseus Mining’s (ASX: PRU) Sissingue gold operation and Bagoe deposits, as well as TSXV-listed Montage Gold’s (TSXV: MAU) recent four-million-ounce Kone gold discovery.
An untapped resource
Aurum considers its project area to be an under-explored southern extension of the Boundiali belt where a highly deformed synclinal greenstone horizon traverses finer grained basin sediments and to the west Tarkwaian clastic rocks lie in contact with a granitic margin.
The minimal historic exploration undertaken to date in the project area includes 93 aircore drill holes and 4 reverse circulation holes, while airborne geophysical surveying, geological mapping and soil sampling have also been performed in one section of the project.
In the other section, 91 reverse circulation holes have been drilled for 6,229m along with geochemical analysis and modelling.
Aurum is currently analysing the historic exploration data.