PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Newly minted gold miner Firefinch has wasted no time in starting exploration at its newly acquired Morila mine, in Mali, with the company on Thursday announcing that drilling has started at the project area.
The acquisition of the Morila gold mine from majors AngloGold Ashanti and Barrick Gold was completed earlier this week, at a final price of A$28.8-million.
The mine is forecast to produce some 26 350 oz of gold from November 2020 to the second quarter of 2021, with the mine scheduled for closure in 2021. Firefinch has previously said that there was significant potential for near-term growth in production and mine life.
Firefinch on Thursday said that a programme of 45 drill holes, for 675 m of shallow air core drilling has now started to test for potential extensions of the tailings mineral resource of 4.8-million tonnes, grading 0.5 g/t gold for 76 000 oz of contained gold.
On completion, the drill rig will test two high priority gold-in-soil targets close to the plant and pit.
Reverse circulation drill rigs are also expected to arrive on site later this month and will infill and test for extensions to the N’Tiola, Viper and Koting deposits. A diamond drill rig is expected to infill and test for extensions to the main Morila deposit.