VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Canadian gold producer Endeavour Mining has announced a maiden resource for its recent Bakatouo and Colline Sud discoveries at its Ity gold mine, in Côte d'Ivoire.
The deposits, located 2.5 km from the current processing plant, are characterised by their high-grade and near-surface mineralisation and remain open in various directions, the company reported on Monday.
Endeavour reported a significant high-grade initial resource totalling 515 000 oz grading 2.97 g/t gold gold in the indicated category and 108 000 oz grading 2.73 g/t gold in the inferred category.
Importantly, the average gold grades are nearly twice that of the current resource base, the company stressed.
According to Endeavour, the discoveries provide the potential to both extend the existing heap leach operation and improve the economics of the future carbon-in-leach project (CIL).
Both discoveries remain open with follow-up drilling now starting, the company advised.
Endeavour also reported that it recently completed an auger drilling programme outlining large and highly anomalous clusters with values as high as 7 000 parts per billion (ppb), identifying several new near-mine high-priority exploration targets.
The company plans to undertake a high-resolution airborne geophysical survey before year-end on the recently secured 80 km trend along the Ity mine.
Meanwhile, a feasibility study for the Ity CIL project is expected to be published later this week, which will be updated in the first half of 2017 to include the Bakatouo and Colline Sud discoveries.
Edited by: Samantha Herbst
Creamer Media Deputy Editor
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