Aim-listed Panthera Resources has completed an 8 546 m air core (AC) drill programme in 152 drill holes at the Bassala project, in Mali, and 5 m samples have been despatched for assay.
All geochemical and chargeability targets have now been drilled with shallow AC to the base of weathering.
Assay results are expected by the end of the month.
"The previous drilling at Bassala returned excellent results including 10 m at 3.79 g/t gold from 20 m and 10 m at 3.45 g/t gold from 60 m, suggesting potential for significant, moderate- to high-grade gold mineralisation. That programme only tests the southern and central parts of the current tenement.
“The current programme included the northern part of the tenement where most of the artisanal mining activity occurs and where we believe drilling will delineate further gold mineralisation.
“The current drilling is essentially geochemical drilling and only targeted the upper weathered zone with very broad line spacing. The next step, once the current assay results are received, will be to test the known mineralisation with deeper and closer spaced reverse circulation drilling, aimed at defining resource drill-out targets,” says MD Mark Bolton.