Exploration to production company African Aura Mining has announced the start of a two-rig, 10 000-m diamond-drill programme at the company’s New Liberty gold deposit, in western Liberia.

The drilling programme is designed to confirm the resource morphology to a 
300-m depth and will contribute to an updated bankable feasibility study for an openpit or underground gold mine targeting a 100 000-oz/y production. Drilling undertaken below 200 m intersected highly encouraging grades, including 23 m at 4,95 g/t gold and 26 m at 5,04 g/t gold. The best drill intersect from New Liberty is currently 8,45 g/t gold over 37 m from a 55-m depth in the Larjor zone.

African Aura president and CEO Luis da Silva says that the company is currently focused on fast-tracking the development of the New Liberty gold project through to production.

“We are extremely pleased with the progress we have had to date and, in addition to the current confirmation drill-
ing at New Liberty, we will also be looking to significantly expand the resource base on the Bea Mountain mining licence through an aggressive exploration cam-paign focused on a number of high-priority targets elsewhere in the licence,” he asserts.

The priority targets include Weaju and Gondoja, where best intersects from previous first pass drilling by African Aura were 27,7 g/t over 6 m and 3,9 g/t over 30 m respectively. The targets are in close proximity to New Liberty and potentially within trucking distance, which could allow the company to capitalise on considerable operational and cost cutting synergies in future.

As a result of the merger between exploration company Mano River Resources and African Aura Resources, the company has enhanced its portfolio of gold assets with the acquisition of the Batouri gold project, in Cameroon.

“Batouri adds another potentially significant gold deposit to the Africa Aura portfolio and has also allowed for diversification into another highly prospective gold-mining area. We remain confident that the company will continue to enjoy success with its gold assets, as we look to strengthen our position as an emerging gold producer in West Africa in the midterm,” Da Silva adds.

The 1,4-million-ounce New Liberty gold deposit is a shear-zone-hosted Archaean age greenstone gold deposit, which has geological parallels with gold deposits found in gold provinces such as the Victoria goldfields, in Tanzania; the Kilo Moto region, in the north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo; and the Guyana shield of Venezuela and Ontario, in Canada.

Further, he says that the Archaean geology of West Africa, as found in western Liberia, is one of very few Archaean gold provinces globally that remain to be significantly explored. 
African Aura believes that it has the potential to host several new openpit and underground gold mines.

African Aura’s assets include the New Liberty gold deposit and the Putu iron-ore project, both in Liberia. Putu is being explored and operated by the company’s joint venture partner mining company Severstal Resources. The company also has a 59% interest in diamond producer Stellar Diamonds.