Aurum Resources’ strategic gold move in West Africa paying off
Aurum Resources’ (ASX: AUE) decision to acquire a significant mining operation in gold-rich Côte d’Ivoire looks to be paying off with continued drilling success in the region.
In mid-November 2023, Aurum entered into a binding heads of agreement to acquire specialist West African drilling company PlusOr Global and its interest in the highly-prospective Boundiali gold project.
Boundiali is located within the same greenstone belt as the 11.5 million ounce Syama and 1Moz Sissingue gold mines to the north, the 5Moz Tongon mine to the north-east and Montage Gold’s 4.5Moz Koné project to the south.
The acquisition also included two self-owned diamond drill (DD) rigs and around 10,000m diamond drilling consumables.
Aurum wasted no time in putting the two rigs to work, later adding a third to help accelerate its exploration plans which are aimed at drilling 2,600 metres per month.
Immediate success
Amongst multiple hits, Aurum’s best return to date came in at 73m with 2.15 grams per tonne gold from 172m including 4m at 18.63g/t.
Early drilling activities have identified high-grade gold and multiple shallow and wide gold intercepts.
Backed by a recent oversubscribed two-tranche placement that raised $7 million, Aurum plans to keep on drilling to take advantage of its low-cost DD rigs and rig operators.
Significant acreage position
Aurum now holds three granted tenements within the tightly held Tongon-Sissingué triangle in West Africa.
The company has to date identified seven prime targets within its BM tenement at Boundiali.
The targets were defined through assessment of 93 previously-drilled aircore drill holes and 816 rock chip assays.
Aurum has also assessed data from an electromagnetic-airborne geophysical survey and an extensive gold-in-soil anomalism.
Exploration at the BD tenement is more advanced, where soil sampling highlighted a more than 13 km by 3 km corridor of more than 30 parts per billion gold anomalies.
Follow up reverse circulation drilling of 91 holes 6,229m defined three prospects that are being tested with the current exploration program.
Assay results from the first eight DD holes identified strong gold mineralisation with thick and homogeneous mineralisation, with seven hitting wide intervals of gold mineralisation.