Ongoing exploration at gold miner Perseus Mining’s Yaouré gold mine, in Côte d’Ivoire, has returned high-grade results from CMA Northwest and CMA North targets, down dip from the recently announced underground ore reserves, demonstrating potential for further underground resources growth.

Infill drilling at the mine’s CMA Northwest target returned high-grade intercepts, including 22 m of gold mineralisation at a grade of 3.14 g/t from 281 m, 15 m at a grade of 4.42 g/t from 283 m and 3.4 m at a grade of 11.28 g/t from 294 m in drill hole YRC2142D.

Infill and extensional drilling of the CMA North target also returned multiple high-grade intercepts, including 13.2 m of gold mineralisation grading 9.36 g/t from 332 m, inclusive of a high-grade zone of 5.8 m grading 18.01 g/t from 337 m in drill hole YRC2181D.

Drill hole YRC2157D revealed 24 m of gold mineralisation grading 3.65 g/t from 308 m, including a high-grade zone of 6 m grading 10.34 g/t from 313 m.

Meanwhile, drilling to test conceptual targets, including targets generated from a 2020 three-dimensional seismic survey, has identified new hanging wall lodes associated with seismic reflectors.

These results include drill hole YDD0575 with a 41 m mineralised zone grading 1.12 g/t of gold from 437 m, including a high-grade zone of 3 m with a grade of 4.87 g/t gold from 514.8 m, a 1 m zone with a grade of 19.47 g/t gold from 474 m and an 8.8 m zone with a grade of 3.46 g/t gold from 506 m.

Going forward, Perseus intends to conduct drilling in the first half of this year to add confidence to existing mineral resources, convert them from inferred to indicated and test additional targets, potentially leading to new discoveries.

MD and CEO Jeff Quartermaine says that, with Perseus’ three gold mines – Yaouré, Edikan and Sissingué – producing at a yearly rate of more than 500 000 oz of gold, the company aims to maintain this level of production to the end of the current decade and beyond.

“Our latest infill and stepout drilling results from below Yaouré’s CMA openpit and the recently reported underground reserve have confirmed previous drilling results and give us a growing level of confidence that these mineral resources and reserves will continue to grow.”