Klaus Eckhof’s Amani Gold reports high-grade gold assays at Giro

A phase one diamond drilling campaign at the Kebigada deposit within Amani Gold’s (ASX: ANL) Giro project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has returned some of the deepest high-grade gold assays to-date for the junior explorer.

The company has confirmed the campaign successfully targeted deeper, high-grade, sulphide-associated gold mineralisation within the central core of Kebigada, with lab analysis indicating lithological continuity and style of mineralisation.

Drill holes also intersected sulphide mineralisation in the form of dissemination, quartz/pyrite and pyrite veins, stringers and distinct pyrite laminas all of which may be associated with gold.

Best results were 58m at 1.61 grams per tonne gold from 204m, including 11m at 2.75g/t gold from 208m, 10m at 3.26g/t gold from 228m, and 4m at 1.82g/t gold from 254m.

Also recorded was an intercept of 23.65m at 1.183g/t gold from 299m, including 1m at 10.5g/t gold from 303m and 1m at 3.72g/t gold from 308m.

Technical director Grant Thomas said the assays were significant to the company’s progress at Giro.

“If the results are as good in the much deeper phase one drill holes, then we will need to consider implementing an additional phase of drilling,” he said.

“An upgrade of the Kebigada resource estimate also seems warranted.”

Flagship project

Amani’s flagship Giro gold project comprises two exploration permits over 497 square kilometres within the DRC’s Kilo-Moto greenstone belt.

While much of the belt is considered to be significantly underexplored, it also hosts the 16 million-ounce Kibali group of gold deposits owned by Barrick Gold Corporation and situated within 35km of Giro.

The Giro project area contains highly-prospective volcano-sedimentary lithologies in a similar structural and lithological setting as the Kibali deposits and has been subject to historical and artisanal mining.

Amani has outlined a gold resource at Kebigada of 45.62Mt at 1.46g/t gold for 2.14Moz at a cut-off grade of 0.9g/t gold.

Giro’s global resource exceeds 3Moz gold, with combined indicated and inferred mineral resource estimates for Kebigada and the nearby Douze Match deposits totalling 81.77Mt at 1.2g/t gold for 3.14Moz at a cut-off grade of 0.6g/t gold.

The Klaus connection

Amani’s development is being steered by mining identity and former AVZ Minerals (ASX: AVZ) chairman Klaus Eckhof who rattled the ASX in mid-2018 with an on-off market selldown of AVZ shares.

With more than 25 years’ experience in minerals developments worldwide, Mr Eckhof stepped down from the AVZ hotseat in June last year.

He was named an executive director of Amani in January and in April, was appointed chairman.

Mr Eckhof has a track record of transforming junior companies – in 2003, he founded Moto Goldmines and helped grow its share price from $0.04 to $4.00 on the back of the successful Moto gold project in Africa.

The project was eventually bought out by Randgold Resources in a $720 million takeover, and Randgold was later acquired by Barrick Gold Corporation for $8.6 billion.

In his time with AVZ, Mr Eckhof was focused on developing the Manono project, in the southern DRC, which boasts the world’s largest JORC measured and indicated lithium hard rock resource.

He was also instrumental in the discovery of the Bisie Tin project – one of the world’s largest and most significant tin deposits, also located in the DRC – and worked in a management position for Mount Edon Gold Mines Ltd before it was acquired by Canadian mining company Teck Resources.

Mr Eckhof’s current roles include non-executive chairman of Okapi Resources (ASX: OKR) and technical advisor to Classic Minerals (ASX: CLZ).

At midday, shares in Amani were steady at $0.002.