Chesser Resources hits new mineralised area in West Africa’s elephant gold region
Drilling at Chesser’s Diamba Sud project in Senegal has hit an 11m wide gold mineralised zone.
Latest drilling at the Senegal project owned by Chesser Resources (ASX: CHZ) has hit a new mineralised structure located just 5km from its primary discovery.
The newly discovered mineralised structure at the Diamba Sud project is approximately 11m wide.
Chesser reports an intersection over 22m at 2.12 grams per tonne gold, beginning at 36m downhole. It includes a 1m section at 13.90g/t gold.
The company said the northwest striking structure with artisanal workings and historical drilling indicates a 500m strike length, which is open along strike in both directions.
Geophysics suggest it is a sub-parallel zone of the Western Splay structure.
Historical drilling 200m to the southeast intersected 25m at 1.52g/t gold, which included 9m at 2.99g/t gold.
Meanwhile, the large Western Splay and multiple sub-parallel anomalies remain untested.
An additional five assays from the Western Splay target are pending, along with results from 21 holes drilled at Area A — Chesser’s primary discovery — and Area D at Diamba Sud.
Exploring a region with discoveries totalling 45 million ounces
Chesser managing director and chief executive officer Mike Brown said the company is excited that the first holes across the interpreted extension of mineralisation at Western Splay have confirmed those strike extensions.
“Artisanal working some 300m to the northwest along strike indicates that this structure may have at least 500m of possible strike, which is open in both directions,” he said.
Chesser’s Senegal projects are located within the Birimian-age greenstone belts comprising the Kedougou-Kenieba Inlier, which has seen discoveries totally 45 million ounces of gold over the past 20 years.
Other deposits in the region include Barrick Gold’s Loulo (12.5Moz) and Gounkoto (5.5Moz), along with Teranga Gold’s Sabodala (5.4Moz) and Massawa (3.0Moz), as well as IAMGold’s Boto project (2.6Moz).
Recent capital raising
Earlier this month, Chesser raised $6 million through a placement to fund a large-scale drilling program at Diamba Sud.
At the same time, the company appointed as non-executive chairman Mark Connelly, who has extensive experience in West Africa. He is also the non-executive chairman at Mali gold hunter Oklo Resources (ASX: OKU).
Chesser was floated in 2009 and then took a 70% stake in the Kestanelik project located in Turkey, which was sold in 2014 for $40 million.
At the time, Turkey was the world’s third biggest consumer of bullion. More than 250,000 people were engaged in gold jewellery fabrication in the country, which ranked second behind Italy as an exporter of these items.