Golden Rim aims to boost 1Moz gold maiden mineral resource

West Africa explorer Golden Rim Resources (ASX: GMR) has confirmed its plans for its Kouri gold project in Burkina Faso includes continuing exploration efforts to expand the lower grade one million ounce maiden gold resource over the next year and target high-grade, shallow gold mineralisation.

The company said today it was testing extra targets in Kouri’s immediate resource area where it declared the 1Moz indicated and inferred mineral resource three weeks ago.

Golden Rim’s maiden indicated and inferred Kouri resource comprised 20.8 million tonnes at 1.5 grams per tonne gold at a cut-off grade of 0.5g/t gold.

About 15.3% of the mineral resource had been in the indicated category while 84.7% was inferred.

Today the Australian company said exploration was continuing at Kouri, with systematic exploration of the entire 16km long gold mineralised shear zone also taking place.

Golden Rim managing director Craig Mackay said the company’s focus over the next 12 months would be to expand the resource.

“While we were very pleased with the maiden indicated and inferred mineral resource of one million ounces of gold at Kouri, we believe we have only just scratched the surface and there is potential to significantly expand and upgrade the Kouri gold resource,” the geologist-director and Golden Rim leader of 11 years said.

“We have just completed 11 follow-up RC holes around (25.2 g/t gold) high-grade mineralisation. Visible gold has been noted in some of these holes, and we eagerly await the assay results.”

Golden Rim has drilled another 5,115 metres of reverse-circulation holes since the resource statement calculation, testing seven targets with 40 holes in association with its drilling-for-equity partner Ausdrill.

Assay results are back on eight holes, with Golden Rim today reporting the holes had outlined a new high-grade gold lode of 6m at 25.2g/t gold which is linked to a 1.2-kilometre-long induced polarisation geophysical anomaly that lies 100m south-east of the mineral resource.

The high-grade 25.2g/t gold lodes discovery south-east of the Guitorga Lodes was reported to market late last month and included 1m at 114g/t gold.

The company confirmed today it was soon expecting assay results for the remaining 32 holes.

Golden Rim said visible gold was noted in several of the completed holes around the new high-grade gold lode.

Next steps

Golden Rim will focus its initial efforts for a diamond-drilling program on testing potential high-grade shoot areas. Planning for the campaign is currently underway.

Golden Rim is also expecting results soon from a 5,500m auger drilling program to explore the full 16km length of a gold mineralised shear zone, an effort the company says is progressing well.