A report compiled by SRK Consulting has confirmed that gold explorer Cora Gold’s Sanankoro project, in Mali, has the potential to delineate between one-million and two-million ounces of gold to a depth of 100 m, also indicating the potential for significant further upside at depth.
SRK derived an initial exploration target of between 30-million and 50-million tonnes of gold ore at a grade of between 1 g/t and 1.3 g/t gold.
“We are pleased that our strategy of first defining the scale potential of the project has been vindicated before reverting to more focused drilling to identify areas of higher-grade mineralisation, which might be suitable as “starter pits” for any future standalone gold mine.
“In addition, large tonnages of oxide ore, which in many places is represented by soft saprolitic ore, might be anticipated to be amenable to low-cost mining and processing which could also be beneficial for the early stages of mine development,” noted Cora CEO Dr Jonathan Forster.
The review by SRK will act as a springboard for the next stage of Cora’s strategy, which will be to define the strike extent and depth potential of the higher-grade zones that the first round of drilling indicated may exist.
Sanankoro has been the subject of multiple exploration campaigns, initially by Randgold Resources and subsequently Gold Fields in the mid-2000s to early 2010s, and most recently by Cora in 2017 and 2018.
Consequently, over all four licences that constitute Sanankoro, a significant amount of exploration data is available for the assessment of the exploration potential of the property.
Specifically, this includes a series of variably spaced fences of air core (AC) and reverse circulation (RC) holes and wide-spaced shallow vertical rotary air blast (RAB), AC and auger holes across much of the Sanankoro permit; regional and detailed soil sampling data; and termite mound sampling data, mapping of artisanal pits and geophysical imagery, including induced polarisation.
SRK had considered all available data in developing an exploration target for the Sanankoro project.
The exploration target was derived through a combination of direct three-dimensional volumetric modelling and subsequent block modelling and grade interpolation of downhole assays, predominantly from inclined RAB, AC and RC holes; and two-dimensional map-line modelling of potential strike extensions to the drilled mineralisation and additional prospective zones, based on trends in the exploration data, outside of the main areas of inclined drill sections.