Positive reverse circulation (RC) and auger drilling findings from regional exploration in the Argo area within the Bankan Gold Project in Guinea, which Predictive Discovery Ltd (ASX: PDI) aims to sustainably develop into a Tier-1 gold mine, have been released.
Exploration efforts in the region are focused on the highly promising and underexplored Bankan permits in search of new commercial deposits. Any additional discoveries will add to the 5.38 million ounces of mineral resource discovered at Bankan by NEB and BC, making it the greatest gold discovery in West Africa in a decade.
Located on the primary gold structure that forms the western boundary of the Siguiri Basin, Argo is about 15 to 20 km north of the NEB deposit.
Early stage exploration work at Argo yielded 11 drill targets, and in June the company commenced a first RC drilling programme consisting of about 50 holes for 7,000 metres of drilling.
Exceptional Drilling Results for the Initial 23 Holes
The first 23 holes drilled totalled 3,064 metres, and the RC data released today came from five drill targets in the Argo area: Fouwagbe, Sounsoun, Tindini, Sanikourou, and Sedadiou.
From a depth of 41 metres, a multi-element auger anomaly at Fouwagbe was examined for multiple targets, with the best result being 12 metres at 6.75 g/t. The depth and strike potential will be evaluated with further drilling.
Among the promising findings at other Fouwagbe goals are 4 metres at 1.29 g/t from 94 metres and 1 metre at 13.10 g/t from 17 metres.
Two parallel north-west dipping structures were intersected at Sounsoun, with the greatest values being 5 metres at 5.16 g/t from 129 metres and 9 metres at 1.04 g/t from 61 metres, respectively.
Similar to the NEB deposit, the mineralisation occurs near the contacts between a felsic intrusive and the mafic unit. The newest auger data shows that Sounsoun’s strike potential is greatly increased to the south-west.
Further drilling is scheduled to investigate potential extensions at depth and along strike at Tindini, where the best result was 14 metres at 1.97 g/t from 65 metres. Six metres at 0.68 g/t, three metres at 0.61 g/t, two metres at 0.93 g/t, and one metre at 2.37 g/t are also encouraging results from Tindini.
The remaining holes in the initial RC programme are probing other priority drill targets to the south of Argo, following up on the best RC results thus far. Drilling using RC bits and air cores is also on the agenda.
Compelling Auger Results in Predictive Discovery
Additional auger drilling was carried out by the business at the Argo permit, with positive results coming from the permit’s central, southern, and eastern regions.
The 11,329 metres and 615 holes drilled with augers will help narrow down potential RC drill sites.
These findings have significantly aided the company’s understanding of Argo’s potential by designating several additional target sites for aircore and RC drilling and revealing three subparallel north-east oriented gold anomaly trends in saprolite.
Predictive Discovery Future Work Streams
With the remainder of the holes planned to test other high priority targets in the southern portion of the Argo permit and selectively follow up the best RC results acquired so far, the initial RC drill programme at Argo is still ongoing.
The most promising RC results will be followed up with more aircore and RC drilling, as well as current drill targets and fresh auger anomalies discovered by the most recent auger data. To find out if the auger anomaly continues beyond 1.2km in length, selective infill auger drilling is scheduled, including to the south-west of the Sounsoun target.
To investigate the possibility of a fourth auger trend continuing north-east from the BK2 target over another felsic intrusive, a new auger grid spanning the south-east corner of the Argo permit has been planned.
Andrew Pardey, the company’s MD, had this to say about the findings:
We are delighted with initial results from the first-pass RC drilling program at Argo in the northern part of our Tier-1 Bankan Gold Project. The results include excellent intercepts, and favourable geology is present at several targets where mineralisation appears to be in a similar setting to NEB. The current program is only testing limited zones within the identified targets, and PDI plans to complete additional drilling to build on the most promising results and comprehensively test the broader target areas.
