As part of its long-term endeavour to develop and operate its deposits and identify new ones, Australia-based exploration company Middle Island Resources is continuing its hard-line exploration approach to identify a minimum 1.1-million-ounce gold resource at its tenements in West Africa, says MD Rick Yeates.

Last year, the ASX-listed company completed a drilling campaign on six target sites in Burkina Faso, Liberia and Niger, with significant results generated from five target sites.

Of these, one has the potential to represent a standalone deposit, while the other four are likely to be satellites, says Yeates.

In August, Middle Island also achieved a milestone earn-in interest of 70% in its Nassilé permit, in Niger, where it discovered high-grade gold and met its earn-in commitment of $2-million in exploration expenditure, which allows it to increase its stake in the permit.

Having completed reconnaissance reverse circulation (RC) drill traverses in the 2011/12 field season – over the Songonduari and Forbemi mineralised trends in the Nassilé gold project – Middle Island identified a new drilling target, called Kimba, which com- prises a 10-km-long, high-tenor gold anomaly.

Middle Island infilled the anomaly late last year with further auger drilling to 800 m spaced traverses and plans to progressively refine this in anticipation of rotary air blast (RAB) drilling later this year, says Yeates, who considers Kimba an exciting new target.

Further, Middle Island has acquired a further four permits – one in its own right and three under a farm-in agreement with Vancouver-based exploration company AMI Resources – to consolidate the newly renamed Sirba project around Canadian mining company Semafo’s Samira Hill gold mine.

Yeates reports that 15 significant prospects were identified in this package and identifies the Tialkam South and Central prospects as the most significant.

“We have completed detailed mapping and data compilation at Tialkam South to prepare for an RC drilling programme, where previous explorers have identified several broad high-grade gold intercepts,” says Yeates, who estimates that the drilling programme will start in March.

The Tialkam South prospect is strategically located 15 km from the Samira Hill processing plant.

Focus for 2013

In addition to newfound prospects in Niger, Middle Island’s primary focus this year is the K4/K5 site, in Burkina Faso, which still shows the best promise as a standalone target at the Reo project, asserts Yeates.

“The target comprises a large zoned alteration system within which we have identified a series of deposits that might aggregate to a significant resource.”

Middle Island completed a 58 000 m geo- chemical auger drilling programme at the Reo gold project in the 2011/12 field season and defined four key targets, three of which have generated significant results in follow-up RAB and RC drilling.

Further, a 40 000 m RAB drilling programme was completed on the K4/K5, East and Samba prospects last year, defining significant results at the K4/K5 prospect and a discovery intercept of 4 m at 21.7 g/t gold, at Samba.

Yeates tells Mining Weekly that limited RAB drilling was also undertaken at the Dassa and East prospects, but the results were less significant.

Meanwhile, the Nuon River gold project’s Big Hill target, in Liberia, appears to comprise a stacked series of quartz veins, which are more likely to represent a high-grade satellite resource. Middle Island had originally hoped to find a broad, lower-grade mineralised system amenable to openpit extraction.

Yeates describes the initial results of the Big Hill prospect’s RC drilling programme as “mildly disappointing”, but says the subsequent diamond drilling results were substantially better, reflecting the extensive visible gold identified in drill core and surface exposures.

Further, Middle Island completed an airborne magnetic and radiometric survey over the whole Nuon River project last year, which identified a magnetic marker horizon that enabled it to trace mineralisation at Big Hill further east and west.