Aurum Resources advances Boundiali project with new drilling, licence renewal and capital raise
Aurum Resources (ASX: AUE) ramped up its exploration activity at the Boundiali gold project in Côte d’Ivoire during the three months to end September.
The company completed 75 diamond holes for a total of 19,915 metres on the BD and BM tenements and is on track to reach its target of 45,000m of drilling by year-end.
Assays from step-back drilling of 14 holes for 4,485m at BD Target 1 returned wide hits such as 40m at 1.03 grams per tonne gold from 136m including 5m at 1.70g/t and 11m at 2.15g/t gold from 169m including 4m at 4.14g/t.
BM Target 1 drilling
Strong results from the drilling of five holes for 914.5m at BM Target 1 included the best gold intercept to date from shallow and wide high-grade hits.
Highlights were 11.46m at 6.67g/t gold from 162.54m including 1.46m at 45.04g/t, 45m at 0.93g/t gold from 78m including 8m at 1.18g/t from 78m and 25m at 1.15g/t gold from 98m.
The mineralisation remains open along strike and at depth at both prospects and drilling is ongoing to follow up on the initial results.
Metallurgical testing
In July, Aurum announced the results of initial metallurgical testing on 50 samples from BD Target 1 that returned gold recoveries up to 99%.
Bottle roll cyanide leach tests confirmed that the gold mineralisation is free-milling, with cyanide leach recoveries consistently exceeding 93% for samples grading 0.25g/t gold or higher.
The preliminary metallurgical results are believed to be highly encouraging and indicate that Boundiali ore could be amenable to conventional processing methods.
Contractor appointment
Aurum appointed MACA Interquip Mintrex and ALS (Perth) in August to carry out metallurgical activities towards pre-feasibility and (potentially) definitive feasibility studies at Boundiali.
ALS started comminution tests and cyanide leach test work in September.
September saw Aurum renew its Boundiali South exploration licence covering 167.36 square kilometres and hosting the advanced high-grade Nyangboue gold deposit.
Drilling will commence shortly after receiving the necessary approvals for operations within the classified forest area, which covers less than half of the exploration licence, with final ministerial sign-off expected within the coming weeks.
Capital raising
Aurum secured firm commitments in June for a $17 million two-tranche placement priced at $0.33 per share.
A share purchase plan to raise an additional $3m raised $744,100 before costs.
The company subsequently secured firm commitments of $2.26m at $0.33 per share for a shortfall placement.
Funds raised will be primarily used to accelerate Boundiali exploration as the company targets delineation of an inaugural mineral resource estimate before year-end.
Other priorities will include diamond drilling, surveys, test work and building a centralised exploration camp at the Boundiali project site.
Other activities
The company sold the Ryan’s Find nickel-cobalt-gold project to Aurumin (ASX: AUN) in July for consideration of $75,000 in Aurumin shares.
In September, Aurum sold the Penny South project to Nickel X – which has since changed its name to Strata Minerals (ASX: SMX) – for $60,000 cash and 3 million Nickel X shares priced at $0.02 each..
A deferred consideration of up to $1m will be paid to Aurum upon the delineation of pre-determined gold resources and grades.
Aurum had $19.35m cash on hand at the end of September.