Tietto Minerals intercepts ‘exceptionally high-grade’ gold from ongoing drilling at AG South

Tietto Minerals (ASX: TIE) has uncovered more gold from drilling at the Abujar-Gludehi South (AG South) deposit, part of the Abujar project in West Africa, with the company describing the latest assays as “exceptionally high-grade”.

Assays have also extended AG South mineralisation, with the system remaining open at depth.

Highlight intercepts comprise 3m at 58.61 grams per tonne gold from 64m, including 1m at 174.72g/t gold.

Tietto managing director Dr Caigen Wang said the new assays add to the “string of high gold grades” already reported at AG South, including the project best of 1m at 532.5g/t, which was reported earlier this month.

“Our infill and extensional drilling program at AG has delivered across a range of metrics – more high gold grades, increased resource confidence and resource growth.”

Dr Wang added results from the infill program will be used in the resource update which is scheduled for the end of June.

“This model will be handed over to the mining engineers for open pit optimisation studies and we expect to see a material increase in Abujar ore reserves in the definitive feasibility study.”

Progressing Abujar

Dr Wang said once the infill drilling program has finished, the company will then use the diamond drill rigs to test the “multitude” of exploration targets around the proposed mill for the project.

“On the development front, our recent initiatives and work program demonstrate our progress towards delivery of our fully funded Abujar definitive feasibility study in Q3 2021 and more broadly, positioning Abujar as West Africa’s next gold mine,” he added.

Tietto anticipates further strong news flow with more than 7,000 samples at the laboratory.

The company’s six diamond rigs are drilling about 11,000m a month this year to drive “rapid resource growth”.

During the current quarter, Tietto plans to begin site and camp construction with work progressing on the front end engineering design for the proposed gold operation.

Abujar’s maiden open pit resource currently stands at 15.7Mt at 1.7g/t gold for 860,000oz, within a mining inventory of 22.9Mt at 1.5g/t gold for 1.12Moz.

The project resource inventory comprises 3.02Moz of contained gold.