VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Canadian explorer Savary Gold has discovered three new gold zones at its flagship Karankasso joint venture (JV) gold project, in south-western Burkina Faso, while the latest drilling programme has also extended the known mineralised zones.

The TSX-V-listed company, which owns a 69.5% stake in the property with 30.5% JV partner Sarama Resources, on Monday reported the results from its 6 747 m third phase of drilling. This third phase involved the drilling of 109 holes since the start of June.

“The Phase 3 programme was predominantly designed to evaluate new targets, developed from the auger drilling programme, and previous drilling, with a lesser emphasis on the zones with current mineral resource estimates. As a result, we have further increased the scope of the project by making several new gold zone discoveries and [we have] continued to extend select existing zones,” said president and CEO Don Dudek in a press release.

Savary’s endeavours have resulted in a new, felsic intrusion-hosted discovery located 1 km south of the Karangosso zone and another good-grade intercept 500 m to the north of the currently defined Karangosso deposit.

The programme has also resulted in extensions to the gold zones at Serakoro 1 West and the discovery of new gold mineralisation; the discovery of new gold mineralisation along the Central Auger anomaly; a new parallel zone of gold mineralisation to the west of the Kueredougou West zone; further extensions to the Diosso South and Kueredougou West zones; and an extension to a new area of gold mineralisation at the south end of the Serakoro 1 Main area.

Dudek advised that an updated resource estimate was in progress, for publication before the end of September. Once approved, follow-up drilling of these and other targets will start as soon as they are approved by the JV board and it is practical to do so.

The Karankasso project is located within the Birimian age, Houndé greenstone belt, which hosts Semafo’s Mana mine, Roxgold’s Yaramoko mine and other gold deposits that are currently subject to production decisions and extensive exploration efforts. Among these are Endeavour Mining’s Houndé project, Orezone’s (acquired by Sarama) Bondi project and Sarama’s/Acacia Mining’s South Houndé joint project, which borders Savary’s property.

The Karankasso project contains a compliant inferred openpit constrained mineral resource estimate of 9.16-million tonnes grading 2.28 g/t gold.