Tietto Minerals continues to de-risk mining at Abujar with more high-grade gold hits
Infill drilling at Abujar will underpin confidence in the updated resource due in May.
Advanced gold explorer Tietto Minerals (ASX: TIE) is continuing to de-risk open pit mining at its Abujar gold project in Côte d’Ivoire with the return of more high-grade gold intercepts from an ongoing infill drilling program.
The West Africa-focused company today revealed results from a third batch of assays from the Abujar-Gludehi (AG) Core deposit, which comprised high gold grades of up to almost 60 grams per tonne.
Best intersections included: a 22-metre intersection grading at 5.62g/t from 97m, including a high-grade intercept of 5m at 17.87g/t; 2m at 59.77g/t from 54m; 6m at 17.01g/t from 61m including 2m at 50.35g/t; and 14m at 2.87g/t from 136m including 4m at 9.19g/t gold.
The assays came from 33 holes for 5,377m, within a larger 30,000m infill diamond drilling program being undertaken across the Abujar gold project that aims to convert a portion of its 1.65 million ounces of indicated resources to the measured category. Tietto expects to mine these measured resources within the first two years of production.
Results validate strategy to use company-owned drill rigs
The company awaits assays for a further 66 holes drilled for 12,897m and the remaining 5,755m of infill drilling is expected to be completed by the end of October.
The company is targeting a resource update by the end of the 2021 calendar year.
“These results validate our strategy of using its own diamond drill rigs drilling at 10,000m a month to deliver a constant flow of high-grade gold intercepts with three intercepts reporting over 100 gold gram metres, and tow of these were from one hole, ZDD685,” Tietto managing director Dr Caigen Wang said.
“These impressive results follow hard on the heels of our definitive feasibility study last week that confirmed Abujar’s potential to be one of the largest gold producing mines in Côte d’Ivoire with more than 260,000 ounces of gold expected to be produced in the first year and 1.2Moz of gold in the first six years,” he added.
The news also comes a day after Tietto announced Dr Wang had exercised options to invest $1 million in the company as a demonstration of his commitment to bringing Abujar into production.
Next steps
Tietto is continuing to aggressively explore its West African project to drive rapid resource growth. This includes targeting 100,000m of diamond drilling in 2021 using six company-owned diamond drill rigs, drilling testing 8.5km of fertile Abujar main shear along strike from the existing AG and APG deposits, and drill testing high-priority regional targets.
In addition to delivering a definitive feasibility study last week, the company has secured a SAG mill for the project and engineering design of the gold mine processing plant is being undertaken by Perth-based Primero Group.
All mining and environmental approval has been secured and the Abujar mining convention, the final regulatory step required, is being negotiated with the Ivorian government.