Canadian gold miner Iamgold Corporation expects to start further drilling at its wholly owned Boto gold project, in eastern Senegal, in November, once the rainy season ends, says Iamgold senior VP Craig MacDougall.

The additional drilling will follow a drilling programme that confirmed the presence of wide intervals of high-grade mineralisation, the results of which were released last month.

Apart from the drill programme, Iamgold’s 2016 objectives for Boto include the preparation of an exploitation permit, a process which was under way as of September 15.

The company reported at this time that the assay results from the latest drilling programme completed prior to June, involved 23 diamond drill holes at the Malikoundi deposit covering 2 217 m. Five diamond drill holes were also deepened to target footwall mineralisation and provide additional geotechnical information.

Highlights of the Malikoundi deposit results include drill hole 2300, with a depth of 9 m, grading 4.76 g/t gold; drill hole 2302 at 12 m, grading 6.39 g/t gold; and hole 2303 at 22 m, grading 4.04 g/t gold. Additionally, of the five deepened holes, drill hole 2122 had a depth of 32 m and graded 5.19 g/t gold, while 2218 had a depth of 42 m and graded 3.6 g/t gold.

MacDougall noted that the drilling programme had successfully delineated near-surface, shallow mineralisation extending 500 m along the strike length, north of the Malikoundi deposit.

He added that the multiple zones of gold mineralisation over significant widths indicated the possibility of an underground mining component and/or flexibility in mine sequencing for higher-grade feed.

To date, the company has completed 5 176 m of diamond drilling at the Malikoundi deposit to test for extensions of mineralisation at depth and along the strike length beyond the current resource model, as well as the re-entry and deepening of selected drill holes that previously stopped in footwall mineralisation. The drilling programme also included 765 m aimed at providing geotechnical information to help define potential pit wall slopes.

Last year, the company completed about 14 400 m of diamond drilling as part of a 50 m × 50 m infill programme, primarily on the Malikoundi deposit.

The Boto project comprises 236 km2 of exploration licences located along the Senegal-Mali border. Iamgold notes that the geological characteristics of the project area are similar to those in the prolific Sadiola and Loulo gold districts in adjacent Mali. “The project area is underlain by highly prospective Birimian-aged metasedimentary, volcanic and intrusive rocks along a 7 km strike length of the Senegal-Mali shear zone.”

Boto hosts an indicated resource of 27.7-million tonnes, averaging 1.8 g/t gold for 1.56-million ounces, and an inferred resource of 2.9-million tonnes, averaging 1.3 g/t gold for 125 000 oz.

Iamgold’s other greenfield exploration project is the wholly owned Pitangui project located on an 180 km2 land package in Brazil’s Iron Quadrangle – the second-largest gold-producing region in the country.

The company’s focus is on the São Sebastião deposit, which has an estimated inferred resource of 679 000 oz, averaging 5 g/t gold hosted in iron formations. Last year, more than 12 800 m of diamond drilling was completed as part of the ongoing resource delineation drilling programme initiated in 2014. Drilling aimed at testing the various electromagnetic (EM) anomalies identified on the property from the airborne EM survey completed in 2014 also started last year. Iamgold notes that the EM anomalies bear similarities to the EM anomaly observed at the São Sebastião deposit and, therefore, represent priority exploration targets.

Drilling to test EM anomalies and geological targets previously identified on the property are ongoing.