Panthera Resources plc (LON:PAT), the gold exploration and development company with assets in West Africa and India, has announced that it has successfully secured its interest in the Bido PRM with the support of the Ministry of Mines of Burkina Faso and the Licence’s joint venture partners.
Highlights
· The 100km2 Bido Licence is located in the prolific Poura Birimian greenstone belt, Burkina Faso
· Multiple gold prospects across the Licence area including extensive historical artisanal workings
· Recently obtained historic data revealing high-grade gold drill intercepts at the Kwademen prospect including 23m @ 1.53g/t Au
· Geophysical and drilling programmes are currently being considered
Background to the Bido Licence
The Naton PRM was due for renewal in late 2019, however, due to administrative procedural difficulties, the Arreté was not capable of renewal by our joint venture partners. Following recent discussions with the Mines Department and the Minister of Mines, a new licence has now been awarded to our joint venture partners, Messieurs Boubacar Sanou and Karime Sanou, by the Government of Burkina Faso. The new licence, Bido, has an initial term of three years and is further renewable for another two terms of three years each, with an aggregated term of nine years available to conduct exploration activities if all the applicable conditions below have been met.
Under the joint venture agreement, Panthera Resources is earning an 80% interest in Bido following exploration expenditure of US$1 million on or before July 2022, with Messrs Boubcar Sanou and Karime Sanou holding the remaining 20% interest. Panthera has an option to increase its interest to 100% following further exploration expenditure of US$1 million on or before July 2024. As of 31 March 2020, Panthera has incurred exploration expenditure of US$0.54 million under the joint venture.
Our joint partners are also entitled to a royalty of 1% of the Net Smelter Return which is capped at $3 million.
About Bido
The 100km2 Bido Licence is located in Burkina Faso, approximately 150km West South West of the capital Ouagadougou. The Licence is within the prolific Poura Birimian greenstone belt that hosts multiple >1 million ounces (“Moz”) gold deposits including Konkera (3.3Moz), Gaoua (3.4Moz), and Poura (1Moz). Also, a significant base metal deposit, Perkoa (5.5Mt @ 12% Zn), is located approximately 30 km north of the project area.
Previous exploration activity in the area by BUMIGEB (a Burkina Faso government and United Nations joint venture), Carlin Gold Corporation, and the Company’s current JV partners, Messrs Sanou, has provided an extensive technical data set. This work, combined with the location of past and present artisanal gold mining activity, has resulted in the identification of multiple gold prospects at Bido.
Somika Hill Prospect
As detailed in the Company’s announcement dated 14 January 2018, subsequent work conducted by Panthera has to date concentrated on the east of the Licence. This work culminated in a first pass drilling programme that returned several positive gold intercepts including 8m @ 4.78g/t Au from 66m in drill hole PSHRC004 at the Kaga Vein prospect at the Somika Hill Prospect.
Kwademen Prospect
More recently, additional data has been obtained from the BUMIGEB work that was conducted in the western part of the tenement during 1980-81 at the Kwademen Prospect. This returned several encouraging gold intercepts in broadly spaced drilling (~200m to 300m line spacing) including:
16m @ 1.07g/t Au from 69m
10.4m @ 2.14g/t Au from 191m
23m @ 1.53g/t Au from 143m
2.25m @ 7.74g/t Au from 155.8m
1.45m @ 16.0g/t Au from 52m
1m @ 40.0g/t Au from 90m
Soil sampling conducted by Panthera over the last two years has shown that this drilling is located to the west of the main gold in soil anomaly and also west of the area of artisanal mining activity. The main part of the gold in soil geochemical anomaly and associated artisanal gold mining activity can thus be seen to represent a highly prospective ‘walk-up’ drill target, with over 1,000m of strike potential.
Kwademen South Prospect
Another zone of artisanal gold mining activity is located to the south of Kwademen, possibly associated with a fault offset continuation of the main Kwademen mineralisation.
This large area of workings (>1.5km strike) is focused beneath a laterite hardpan which masks the soil geochemical signature of underlying mineralisation and hence the mineralisation does not show up as a soil geochemical anomaly. These laterites show up as high total count areas in the regional radiometric data and this can be used to map the areas where soil geochemistry is unlikely to be effective.
Notwithstanding the absence of a gold in soil geochemical anomaly, the very extensive artisanal mining activity beneath the laterite hardpan suggests that this area also represents an excellent gold target not previously drill tested.
The Kwademen and Kwademen South targets are both considered to be very high priority targets and will be assessed as part of the planned drilling programme and geophysical analysis.
