Burkina Faso – Dubbed the largest ever exploration programme by Savary Gold in its history, the exploration programme was initiated in later October.
Savary, the operator of the Karankasso JV in southwestern Burkina Faso, notes that the exploration programme, which costs approximately US$2.6 million, consists of up to 21 000 m of drilling (8 000 m costing about $600 000, contingent on results); 12 000 m of auger drilling; approximately 275 line km of gradient IP geophysical surveys; and collection of up to 3 000 soil samples.
The initial planned holes are designed to extend the pit-constrained inferred mineral resources at the Karangosso, West Trend, Diosso South and Kueredougou West Zones.
The company notes that priority will be given to extending these zones along strike and to select in-fill holes which will add confidence to the existing zone interpretations. Once the drill programme is completed, the company plans to update the existing resource on the back of this drill programme in the second half of 2017.
“The goal of this work programme is to materially increase our current in-pit inferred mineral resource estimate and provide good visibility for additional mineral resources with extensions to known zones and the discovery of new zones,” says Savary Gold Corp president and CEO Don Dudek.
He adds that the company will also try new things like turning the drill 90 degrees, in areas like Serakoro 1 West, where previous work has returned intercepts to 6.42 g/t gold over 15 m and gold-in-soil anomalies to 5 290 ppm gold, “but follow-up drilling has not been able to define a coherent zone,” he notes, adding that recognition of east-northeast-trending high grade zones on an adjacent property, make this type of zone, a reasonable and compelling target.
Management believes that our current resource zones coupled with new exploration opportunities, provide a compelling investment thesis. Our plan is to hit this project hard with an aggressive combined drill, geophysical, geochemical and geological program with a view to updating the mineral resource estimate by the end of the third quarter or early fourth quarter of 2017,” says Dudek.
Phased exploration plan
Phase 1 of the drilling commenced during the week of November 21, as planned and consists of approximately 3 000 m of RC and core drilling, in 22 holes, pre-year end.
This part of the programme will comprise the following goals:
- Drilling to test for extensions to in-pit mineral resources at the Karangosso and Diosso South Zones, which combined, contains pit-constrained inferred mineral resource estimate of approximately 200 000 oz of gold grading 2.77 g/t gold, which form part of the current in-pit inferred mineral resource estimate of 671,000 ounces grading 2.28 g/t gold;
- Follow-up testing of the Splay 2 Zone where the first hole returned 9.75 g/t gold over 7 m and 12.24 g/t gold over 4 m;
- Start to test, with 200 to 400 m spaced RC holes, the ~3.5 long, IP chargeability geophysical anomalies and new artisanal mining zones that connect the Kueredougou West Zone to the Diosso South and West Trend Zone.
Phase 2 of the programme consists of approximately 10 000 m of RC drilling and is scheduled to commence on or about January 20. This portion of the programme will focus on the following goals:
- Continued drilling to test for extensions to the Karangosso, Kueredougou West, Diosso South and West Trend Zones;
- Continued testing, with 400 to 600 m spaced drill holes, of the geophysical anomalies that connect the Kueredougou West Zone with the Diosso South and West Trend Zones;
- Follow-up of significant drill intercepts from the phase 1 programme;
- Test targets developed from current geophysical and auger surveys;
- Follow-up on previous RAB and RC holes that have returned up to 2.80 g/t gold over 12 m and RC holes that returned 2.66 g/t gold over 10 m in the Serakoro 1 West and Main Zones, respectively;
- Test for an alternative strike for gold zones at the Serakoro 1 West Zone where previous holes returned 6.42 g/t gold over 15 m and 18.72 g/t gold over 4 m.
Phase 3 of the programme, which is contingent on the results of the first two phases of the programme, would start at the beginning of May 2017. This portion of the programme totals approximately 8 000 m of RC drilling.
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