Panthera Resources Plc (LON:PAT), the diversified gold exploration and development company with assets in West Africa and India, has announced assay results for the exploration drilling programme at the Labola Project in Burkina Faso by its associate company, Moydow Holdings Limited.
Highlights
· Four exploration holes along strike of known mineralisation have returned excellent mineralisation including fire assay intercepts of:
– 4m @ 19.7g/t Au from 92m
– 3m @ 3.46g/t Au from 48m followed by 4m @ 3.09g/t Au from 57m
· Results anticipated to be incorporated into the maiden resource estimate currently being prepared
Commenting on the announcement, Mark Bolton, Managing Director of Panthera said:
“The high-grade intercepts being returned from exploration targets defined by artisanal workings, geophysical anomalies and previous drilling are very encouraging. The results reaffirm our confidence in the potential to materially expand the mineralisation already identified by the historical drilling.
We eagerly await the maiden resource estimates for the previous explorer drilling as part of the NI43-101 report currently being compiled.”
Background
The Labola project is owned and managed by Moydow Holdings Ltd (Moydow). Panthera currently holds an equity interest of 44.1% in Moydow. A proposed restructure of Moydow and farm-in by Diamond Fields Resources Inc (DFR) was announced on 25 August 2021.
The Reverse Circulation (RC) drilling programme at Labola which was completed in August comprised two parts: first, confirmatory “twin” drilling (21 holes for 3118 metres), including one redrill, focused on the two better-defined zones of gold mineralisation identified by previous explorers; and second, redrilling a series of holes for which no assay data is available (5 holes for 900 metres), and third, exploration drilling (5 holes for 721m) in two areas with no previous drilling, targeted to identify additional mineralisation.
Results of the twin drilling and re-drills will be reported once all data has been compiled and assessed.
Technical Details
The Labola (Wuo Land) gold project is located in southern Burkina Faso, approximately 380km southwest of the capital city Ouagadougou. The area is located within the Banfora Greenstone Belt, comprised dominantly of Birimian-aged metasediments with lesser metavolcanics and felsic intrusions. It contains numerous artisanal workings over at least 15,000m strike within the tenement area. These workings appear to be targeting high-grade shoots within individual quartz veins that are located within an extensive zone of shearing, sheeted to stockwork quartz veining and silica-sulphide alteration.
Previous explorers have completed 65,556m RAB/RC/DD drilling in 541 drill holes. That work has outlined numerous extensive zones of gold mineralisation over the entire 9km of strike tested. This mineralisation has been wireframed by previous explorers and mineral resources have been estimated within these wireframes. However, these cannot be reported under JORC or NI43-101 guidelines at this stage, largely due to their historical nature. Some of the previous drilling is quite broad spaced and, although gold mineralisation has been intersected, additional drilling is required to firm-up the mineralisation outlines.
Work by Panthera and Moydow has shown that excellent potential exists to convert the historical resource estimates to a maiden resource estimate by Moydow under JORC or NI43-101 guidelines. The recently completed drilling programme was designed to confirm the historic database and support Moydow’s efforts to prepare a maiden resource estimate as well as to test two high priority exploration targets.
The drill cuttings from this programme have now been analysed using both a conventional fire assay technique as well as by the accelerated cyanide leach technique “LeachWELL” that uses a much larger sample (2-5kg) and hence minimises the statistical effects of coarse gold, which is known to be common in this area and is the main target of the artisanal miners.
The confirmatory “twin” drilling has focussed on the two largest areas identified by previous explorers. Mineralisation has generally been intersected in the locations predicted from the previous drilling, and grades are comparable. This suggests the historical drill information is of good quality and can be used for future mineral resource estimates. More details of this work will be provided once the compilation and assessment are complete.
In addition to the confirmatory drilling, two areas with no previous drilling have been targeted, designed to identify additional mineralisation. This drilling was designed to test a 350m gap in the previous drilling along the western zone, and the possible northern extensions of mineralisation along the central zone. Both these areas have associated artisanal mining activity and IP chargeability and resistivity anomalies.
The exploration drilling returned significant gold drill intercepts as shown in Table 1 below.
| Hole Number | EastingUTM WGS84 Z30N | NorthingUTM WGS84 Z30N | RL (m) | Depth (m) | Azimuth (°T) | Dip(°) | From(m) | To(m) | Int. (m) | g/t Au (FA) | g/t Au (LW) |
| DRA-21-014 | 326961 | 1191551 | 356 | 127 | 105 | -60 | 49 | 67 | 18 | 0.54 | 0.58 |
| incl | 64 | 67 | 3 | 1.11 | 1.22 | ||||||
| DRA-21-015 | 327000 | 1191617 | 357 | 156 | 105 | -60 | 76 | 79 | 3 | 1.02 | 1.06 |
| 92 | 96 | 4 | 19.7 | 20.9 | |||||||
| 111 | 117 | 6 | 0.54 | 0.69 | |||||||
| DRA-21-016 | 327221 | 1191443 | 359 | 126 | 105 | -60 | 18 | 20 | 2 | 1.11 | 1.18 |
| 58 | 60 | 2 | 0.66 | 0.72 | |||||||
| DRA-21-017 | 327248 | 1191546 | 360 | 150 | 105 | -60 | 28 | 32 | 4 | 0.43 | 0.61 |
| 40 | 42 | 2 | 1.34 | 0.63 | |||||||
| 48 | 51 | 3 | 3.46 | 2.17 | |||||||
| 57 | 61 | 4 | 3.09 | 2.81 | |||||||
| 82 | 84 | 2 | 2.39 | 2.59 | |||||||
| 116 | 117 | 1 | 1.21 | na |
It is anticipated that this drilling will add to the total resource inventory as it will aid in continuity and add extensions to the known mineralisation.
Results of the twin drilling will be reported once all data has been compiled and assessed.
