Mining royalty company Altus Strategies says it has recorded excellent gold recoveries from preliminary metallurgical testwork undertaken on composite samples of fresh rock collected from core drilling at the FT prospect at its Tabakorole gold project in southern Mali.

Exploration activities at Tabakorole are being funded by Marvel Gold under a joint venture (JV) with Altus.

Bottle roll tests on core samples from diamond drilling at the FT prospect indicate a straightforward, clean and nonrefractory ore with low reagent consumption, as well as high gold recoveries of 92.7% to 96.6% for grind sizes (P80) of 75 µ to 150 µ.

The project hosts a mineral deposit for which a mineral resource estimate (MRE) has been generated.

This comprises 16.6-million tonnes at 1.2 g/t gold for 620 000 oz in the inferred category and 7.3-million tonnes at 1.2 g/t gold for 290 000 oz in the indicated category.

Forty-three per cent of the current MRE is situated within 100 m of the surface.

The MRE is in accordance with the Joint Ore Reserves Committee code.

A 6 300 m resource expansion reverse circulation drilling programme is under way.

Meanwhile, Marvel has earned a 51% interest in the project and has paid Altus $200 000 in cash.

Marvel has started JV Stage 3 to earn an aggregate 70% by expending $3-million.

Altus holds a 2.5% net smelter return gold production royalty on Tabakorole.

"The results of the preliminary metallurgical testwork on fresh rock from drill core at the FT prospect of the Tabakorole project are excellent.

"Nonrefractory mineralisation with high gold recoveries highlights the potential for a simple, industry standard gold processing flow sheet. Future metallurgical testwork is expected to include potential optimisations of grind size and residence times,” says Altus CE Steven Poulton.

“Tabakorole currently hosts a significant gold resource which is open along strike in both directions, and at depth. The project is emerging as a significant West African gold deposit and these metallurgical testwork results represent a significant step in advancing the project,” he adds.