The exploration team at dual-listed Centamin’s Sukari concession, in Egypt, keeps delivering results that demonstrate the quality of the orebody, says CEO Martin Horgan.
The exploration work completed on Sukari so far this year has identified the potential for satellite openpit sources within the concession and extensions of the underground orebody.
Particularly, the company completed drilling across all areas of the underground orebody, including at Horus Deeps, where drilling intersected the highest-grade mineralisation in that zone to date. The zone remains open to the north, south and down dip, representing a long-term future for the operation.
Notable drill results from Horus Deeps include 54 m of gold grading 15.1 g/t.
The Sukari Bonanza zones, particularly the Bast area between the Ptah and Amun deposits, continues to return high-grade underground zones of Bonanza-style mineralisation.
Centamin confirms that drilling in this area demonstrates a consistent geological host within 100 m of existing infrastructure, which could improve underground operational flexibility through the development of a new high-grade mining area in the near term.
Recent drilling highlights from the Sukari Bonanza zones include 10 m grading 64 g/t gold and 4.5 m grading 267 g/t gold.
This while two newly identified areas on surface, Wadi Alam and V Shear East, show potential to supplement mill feed in the short- to medium term, improving the operational flexibility of the project.
The company aims to publish an updated resource and reserve estimate for Sukari in the fourth quarter.
Centamin has also started work on what it calls Eastern Desert Exploration, which involves six priority areas within the Nugrus block, also in Egypt, that will be sampled and mapped ahead of drill testing.
These priority targets contain more than 20 km of alluvial artisanal workings and more than 300 hard rock artisanal sites.
Meanwhile, the company is also working towards delivering a prefeasibility study (PFS) on the Doropo project, in Côte d'Ivoire, by the end of the year.
The fieldwork has resulted in the completion of 100 000 m of drilling, aimed at converting most of the inferred resource to the indicated resource category and supporting the completion of the PFS.