West African gold explorer Tietto Minerals (ASX: TIE) has hit an interval grading 103 grams per tonne gold at shallow depth during a drilling campaign at its Abujar-Gludehi (AG) deposit in the Côte d’Ivoire region of West Africa.
Assays from a stepback diamond drill hole at the northern end of the deposit, which sits within the greater Abujar gold project, returned the high-grade result from wide intervals of mineralisation which remain open in all directions.
Best recorded result from the hole was 36m at 4.40g/t gold from 52m, including 1m at 103.17g/t gold and 1m at 33.45g/t gold.
The latest interval in the 30,000m campaign is 100m north along strike of the Abujar project’s existing inferred mineral resource of 10.4 million tonnes at 2.1g/t gold for 703,600 ounces.
Results will be incorporated into a pending mineral resource update due by month-end.
Project development
Tietto managing director Dr Caigen Wang said the high-grade interval has been “encouraging and high impact” for the project’s development.
“Adding this latest result to our tally of new drill intersections, we continue to see the growth of a coherent near-surface zone grading more than 3.5g/t gold which we expect will be very attractive for a future open pit development,” he said.
Tietto will continue its drilling activities to test strike and depth extensions with a view to significantly growing the gold resource at Abujar.
Dr Wang said the majority of the 70km stretch of fertile gold structures which comprise Abujar remains to be tested.
“The potential of this system at depth continues to grow as we intersect further wide high‐grade zones of gold mineralisation below the current mineral resource estimate where we already have over 700,000oz defined,” he said.
“Our strategy is to continue to drill deeper and along strike to test these high‐grade shoots, which have the potential to significantly grow the gold resources at Abujar.”
Project location
Located approximately 30km from Daloa in central western Côte d’Ivoire, the Abujar project comprises three tenements – north, middle and south – over a total landholding of 1114 square kilometres.
It sits within a structural corridor associated with gold mineralisation and contains multiple sections of gold veins of up to 3km in length exposed by artisanal mining.
The maiden mineral resource estimate was delivered in December 2016 from a 13,000m drilling campaign within a small portion of the known working areas of the middle tenement.
At midday, shares in Tietto Minerals were trading 15.79% higher at $0.11.
