Gold miner Pan African Resources has announced that exploratory drilling into the down-dip extention of the orebodies at its Barberton Mines, in Mpumalanga, has yielded successful and significant high-grade drilling results, with visible gold in several drill intersections and development ends.

“Our continued focus on increased resource and reserve delineation through systematic exploration programmes has again yielded excellent results and improved our geological understanding of our Barberton operations, demonstrating the extent and quality of our world-class, long-life orebodies.

“We look forward to reporting continued success with our exploration programmes at Barberton and at our Evander Mines,” said Pan African CEO Cobus Loots.

Over the past few years, Pan African has increased its exploration focus on the down-dip extension of the existing orebodies at Barberton Mines, which is comprised of the Fairview, Sheba and Consort mines.

During the company’s 2020 financial year, Barberton Mines conducted diamond core drilling of more than 8 700 m, increasing to more than 9 000 m in the 2021 financial year.

Specific focus was placed on near-mine infill drilling, as well as down-dip reserve delineation drilling of the available underground mineral resources.

So far, high-grade intersections have been made at down-dip extensions to orebodies, while the reefs remain open at depth.

Grades of up to 184 g/t over 0.85 m were noted at the Sheba mine intersection, with free gold visible in core samples and development ends.

Exploration results will inform and enhance Pan African’s mineral resource and reserve estimates, which will be presented in full in September when the company releases its full-year financial results.

Enhanced geological understanding of the region will hopefully support additional drilling programmes in future years, the company said.