African Gold Limited (ASX:A1G) has seen shares skyrocket in early trade after reporting high-grade drill results from its Didievi Gold Project in Côte d’Ivoire, with screen fire assays returning 10m @ 123g/t Au from 66m.
The results from recently completed RC and diamond drilling highlight what the company describes as a ‘high grade component’ of the Didievi system, which currently measures over 1.5km x 1km.
“These screen fires returned some spectacular intercepts including some of the highest grade intercepts I have drilled in my career”
Screen fire assays, as opposed to regular fire assays, are used for more-accurate analysis of core samples where coarse gold is present. These were carried out on samples exceeding 5g/t Au, with the high-grade results reenforcing historical high-grade assay results of 0.74m @ 192.5g/t Au.
The company reports that further work is required to analyse and refine the coarse gold opportunity.
The 391km² Didievi Project is situated within the under-explored Oume-Fetekro Birimian greenstone belt in Côte d’Ivoire, which is home to a number of large-scaled discoveries including the +3Moz Bonikro/Hire mine (Allied Gold), the +1Moz Agbaou mine (Endeavour Mining) and the +2.5Moz Fetekro discovery (also Endeavour Mining).
Previous exploration work carried out by Glencore and Equigold at the project has delineated one ‘significant’ gold system at Blaffo Gueto, along with a series of seven untested advanced gold prospects.
Following the announcement, African Gold issued a prospectus for a $3.9 million (before costs) cash raise via a 2 for 7 non-renounceable rights issue @ $0.15/share, with funds to be used in part for drilling, trenching and soil sampling.
African Gold CEO and Exploration Manager Glen Edwards said: “Historically, it hasn’t been recognised that a high grade gold component existed at Didievi however artisanal miners have been collecting free gold on the margins of the deposit. The historical drilling was assayed by fire assay (the most common assay method) which picked up some very high grades. As part of the QA/QC of our current drill program we ran screen fire assays over the higher grade intervals.
These screen fires returned some spectacular intercepts including some of the highest grade intercepts I have drilled in my career. We are extremely excited about the prospectivity of this gold system and look forward to kicking off the next phase of drilling when I arrive back to the Project later this month.”
Images: African Gold Limited
