After 18 months of drilling at its Golden Hill exploration project in southwestern Burkina Faso, Teranga Gold (TSX: TGZ; US-OTC: TGCDF) has completed a maiden resource estimate.
The plan is to build on the resource and advance the project through a preliminary economic assessment and into the feasibility stage of development.
Golden Hill contains 415,000 ounces of gold in 6.40 million indicated tonnes grading 2.02 grams gold per tonne and another 644,000 ounces of gold in 11.95 million inferred tonnes grading 1.68 grams gold per tonne.
Richard Young, Teranga Gold’s president and CEO, said he was “increasingly confident that Golden Hill will ultimately represent Teranga Gold’s third gold mine”
The resource excluded historic drilling due to incomplete data and was based on nearly 650 drill holes totaling more than 70,000 metres distributed among nine prospects within a 7.5 km radius. At this stage, Teranga Gold says the configuration would lend itself to a multi-pit operation feeding into a central mill.
Teranga Gold said it was “pleased with the grades, strong continuity and widespread mineralization” at Golden Hill and noted that drilling has identified and partially outlined “numerous at-surface, oxide-hosted mineralized gold zones demonstrating excellent along trend and to-depth continuity.”
The gold zones extend to considerable depths below the oxide-hosted mineralization “transitioning into fresh brecciated and altered shear zones that remain open to further depth expansion.”
Richard Young, Teranga Gold’s president and CEO, said he was “increasingly confident that Golden Hill will ultimately represent Teranga Gold’s third gold mine.
The company is building its second gold mine, Wahgnion, in Burkina Faso.
Its first mine, Sabodala, in Senegal, has produced more than 1.6 million ounces of gold since Teranga Gold’s public offering in 2010.
The West Africa-focused company has exploration projects in Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal.
As of June 30, 2018, Teranga Gold had more than 4 million ounces of gold reserves.
