JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – With a maiden National Instrument (NI) 43-101-compliant inferred mineral resource estimate of 1.31-million ounces of gold at 12.1 g/t published for the West Kenya project, London-listed Acacia Mining plans to spend $12-million on exploration on a 45 000 m drilling programme for the Liranda corridor.
With six drill rigs now active on site, and two more to follow shortly, Acacia aims to increase the resource to two-million ounces by the end of the year.
“We also plan to commence a scoping study looking at the potential for an underground mining operation towards the end of 2017,” the company noted.
“This is one of the highest-grade projects in Africa today and we believe this initial resource is a first step in the delineation of a multimillion-ounce high-grade corridor,” CEO Brad Gordon said.
Since 2014, some 44 reverse circulation holes had been drilled for 4 438 m and 132 diamond core holes for 64 700 m on the Liranda corridor targets.