Modern Mining October 2018

MINING News

New gold zone identified at Makabingui project

ASX-listed Bassari Resources, which is developing the Makabingui gold mine in Senegal, has reported the discovery of an encouraging new gold zone by its geologists about 800 m to the east of the Makabingui mineralised system of 1 Moz at 2,6 g/t. The geologists sampled eight rock chip samples with one of the samples returning a high grade of 4,2 g/t Au. The surface area has recently been mined by artisanal min- ers, confirming the new gold zone. Bassari says this new find demonstrates

that the entire Makabingui gold system is still open and appears to be swinging around the Sambarabougou granite in an easterly direction in continuation with the same Makabingui geological setting. The exploration team proposes to dem- onstrate the potential of this previously unknown zone by conducting an induced polarisation (IP) survey over the 800 m trend to provide better definition of the contact structures. This will be followed up by drilling. According to Bassari, the discovery

“opens up Makabingui to being a much larger system, probably containing much more gold than currently defined.” Bassari has also reported significant advancements in the pre-development work for the Makabingui project. These include completion of repairs to Bassari’s 500 Mℓ dam and the setting out of access roads to the Douta plant site to reflect the layout design required for Makabingui ore processing operations. In addition, the river crossing near Sambarabougou vil- lage has been repaired to give all weather

access to the village and Makabingui mine site. Repairs to some culverts at water crossings on the haul road from the Makabingui mine site to the Douta plant site have also been completed. An initial open-pit opera- tion is planned at Makabingui which will produce 174 000 oz of gold over a 3,4 year mine life. The processing rate will be 300 kt/a. Bassari already has a grav- ity plant on site which will be upgraded to treat hard rock ore from Makabingui, a water dam to supply water to the plant and an established camp to accommodate employees and mobile equipment. 

The existing plant at the Makabingui project site (photo: Bassari).

Drilling at greenfield site delivers positive results Endeavour Mining, listed on the TSX, reports positive drill results for the Fetekro greenfield exploration property, located in north-central Côte d’Ivoire approximately 500 km from Abidjan.

we are now excited to report the results from Fetekro, which is our most advanced greenfield exploration property. “The Lafigué target, located within the Fetekro property, has been the pri- mary focus of our recent greenfield exploration programme. The discovery of extensive mineralisation over such a large area, coupled with the identification of nearby prospects, is very encouraging. We are eager to publish a maiden resource later this year, which may bring us one step closer to achieving our second key objective within our five-year exploration programme – that of discovering a stand- alone greenfield project in West Africa.” Fetekro is located in the northern end of the Oumé-Fetekro greenstone belt which extends over 300 km in a north/north-east direction within the Proterozoic Birimian series of central Côte d’Ivoire. 

maiden resource estimate is expected to be published in Q4 2018 and a follow-up drilling programme is scheduled to start in the same quarter. In addition, a gold-in-soil geochemi- cal campaign was recently completed. Its preliminary assessment indicates the occurrence of additional targets located in proximity to Lafigué, where a drill pro- gramme has been scheduled for 2019. “We are pleased to continue to deliver against our two key objectives from our five-year exploration strategy outlined in 2016,” comments Patrick Bouisset, Endeavour’s Executive Vice-President Exploration and Growth. “Following the significant near-mine exploration suc- cess already achieved, in line with our first objective of extending mine lives,

Endeavour began exploration on the Fetekro property in March 2017, following a strategic assessment of its exploration tenements which ranked the property as a top priority target. Since then, a total of 312 Reverse Circulation (RC) and Diamond Drilling (DD) holes has been drilled, amounting to nearly 32 000 m. Drilling mainly focused on the highly prospective Lafigué target where a large mineralised vein system was defined over an area 2,5 km long by 0,6 kmwide, remain- ing open at depth and towards the east. All available data is being interpreted and a

16  MODERN MINING  October 2018