CONFIDENCE-BOOSTING DRILLING
The infill drill programme displays the robust nature of Cardinal Resources' current mineral resource and also supports the company’s project finance plans
Photo by: Bloomberg
Gold-focused exploration and development company Cardinal Resources’ close spaced infill drill pattern has showed the continued presence of mineralised zones within the infill drilling area of the company’s flagship Namdini gold project, in Ghana.
The positive results were from the selected area within the proposed starter pit that encompasses the first two to three years of production at the mine. The infill drill programme further displays the robust nature of the company’s current mineral resource and also supports the company’s project finance plans, according a press statement released last month by Cardinal Resources.
Cardinal completed a 3 640 m reverse circulation percussion and diamond core test infill drill programme which comprised 30 drill holes infilling earlier drilling to a grid pattern of about 25 m by 25 m, within the proposed starter pit.
The drill programme comprised three 25 m spaced traverses with an area of about 300 m by 75 m to about 140 m vertical. Drilling was inclined at around –65º to the east in the Namdini local grid, consistent with drilling undertaken for previous mineral resources.
“This close spaced infill drill programme, along with the previous grade control programme within our proposed starter pit, confirms the robustness of our mineral resource, thereby providing higher confidence in predicting operational outcomes,” states Cardinal Resources CEO/MD Archie Koimtsidis.
Koimtsidis highlights that an additional benefit of these infill drill results is enhancing confidence in the first two to three years of production from the proposed starter pit.
This will assist Cardinal with project financing options for the Namdini project with a declared openpit ore reserve of 5.1-million ounces (138.6-million tonnes at 1.13 g/t gold at 0.5 g/t cutoff) inclusive of 0.4-million ounces proved (7.4-million tonnes at 1.31 g/t gold at 0.5 g/t cutoff) and 4.7-million ounces probable (131.2-million tonnes at 1.12 g/t gold at 0.5 g/t cutoff).
“The infill results are also key to underpinning the delivery of a high‐quality engineering study which will provide more informed economic data during the critical project finance payback period.”