Maiden drilling at Côte d’Ivoire gold prospect identifies widespread mineralisation for Exore Resources

Perth-based Exore Resources (ASX: ERX) has identified widespread insitu gold mineralisation during an aggressive exploration program at its Veronique gold prospect within the Bagoe project in northern Côte d’Ivoire.

Initial results from aircore drilling at the large target highlighted a significant new discovery, with shallow intersections such as 12 metres at 3.63 grams per tonne gold, including 4m at 10.12g/t gold from 8m.

Other results were 4m at 7.58g/t gold from 20m, 4m at 4.45g/t gold from 12m, and 4m at 3.31g/t gold from 16m.

The assays were taken from five holes spaced 400m apart to test 1.6 kilometres of strike along the Veronique anomaly, estimated at 8km in length and 2km in width.

All mineralised zones remain open with highly anomalous geochemistry for 3.5km to north and 3km to the south.

Veronique is located approximately 12km south of Exore’s Antoinette Central gold discovery and is believed to be geologically-analogous to Centamin plc’s nearby 2.9 million ounce Doropo gold find.

Maiden results

Exore managing director Justin Tremain said success at Veronique comes just six months after the company acquired an 80% interest in a suite of Côte d’Ivoire projects from Apollo Consolidated (ASX: AOP).

The Bagoe project is part of the suite, and sits within a major gold producing region which includes the 4.2Moz Tongon project owned by Barrick, the 11.5Moz Syama mine (Resolute Mining, ASX: RSG) and the 1.0Moz Sissingue mine (Perseus Mining, ASX: PRU).

“We are pleased by the results from our maiden drilling at Veronique which confirms the potential for a significant new gold discovery and marks a step towards achieving our objective of defining a multi-million ounce gold project,” Mr Tremain said.

“The scale of [this discovery] is exciting with over 80% of the prospect still untested.”

Mr Tremain said drilling will continue at Veronique, stepping out along strike from the first lines and infilling the initial anomalies intersected, to better understand orientation of the mineralisation.

A large-scale regional geochemical surface sampling program is also underway, covering the entire granted permit area of 700 square kilometres and expected to generate multiple new targets.

Prolific region

Exore’s Côte d’Ivoire gold projects cover a substantial ground position of 830sq km at the convergence of the prolific Tongon and Syama gold belts in West Africa.

The projects comprise the granted Bagoe project (formerly the Boundiali permit), the the Liberty project (formerly the Korhogo permit).

Apollo retains a 19.4% interest in the Côte d’Ivoire project suite, which will be free carried through to “decision to mine” stage.

While it has been exploring in the region since 2015 – successfully defining the greenfield gold prospects of Antoinette, Veronique and Liberty – Apollo changed its exploration focus in 2017 after the discovery of the high-grade Lake Rebecca gold project in Western Australia.

At mid-afternoon, shares in Exore were up 8.33% to $0.078, while Apollo was down 4.17% to $0.23.