Modern Mining October 2022

gold field, which hosts some of the best assets in the world including the likes of Barrick Gold’s North Mara gold mine and AngloGold Ashanti’s Geita Gold mine,” explains Zurrin. When Shanta acquired the West Kenya project, it had on hand 200 000 metres of drilling. Over the next year, the company will focus on developing the project and expanding the resource to offer a higher confidence level as the miner firms the resource into measured and indicated categories. Shanta Gold has earmarked $10-million per annum to exploration drilling, with the aim of taking the project through to feasibility study stage and mine construction and production – all in the next three to five years. Zurrin cites a scoping study published two years ago, which indicated that the West Kenya project could be developed into a producing mine in the next four years. The company is rolling out its 2022 drilling cam paign at West Kenya project – a two-pronged project focused on upgrading existing resources to the indi cated category and resource expansion across its numerous targets. “The latest phase of drilling at West Kenya has continued to deliver consistently high-grade results that are indicative of the vast potential West Kenya

offers in the Shanta Gold growth story. Aside from intersecting grades of 11 g/t and 11,7 g/t which is exceptional when compared to global average of around ½ g/t, the drill programme identified vis ible gold in 15 intersections across 35 holes drilled. Visible gold, including spectacular occurrences, has been identified in 53 intersections across 142 holes drilled since January 2021,” concludes Zurrin. 

Installation of the CIL tanks at Singida.

October 2022  MODERN MINING  17