Perseus Mining, a West Africa-focused mining company has announced a near-mine exploration success at its Edikan gold mine with impressive results at Nkosuo prospect on the Agyakusu Prospecting license.

Published today, January 18, 2021, the press release highlighted the update of exploration activities at the Nkosuo and Edikan mines as at December 2021.

Particularly, the company iterated and further confirmed the upside growth potential of gold inventory that the exploration activities adjacent to its Edikan Gold Mine (Edikan) in Ghana continue to prove.

For the record, it has been only months since Perseus Mining commenced exploration drilling at the Nkosuo prospect on the Agyakusu permit, with the first highly encouraging results reported in October 2021.

Drilling has been conducted on a nominal 80 x 80 metre grid to scope out the extent and overall geometry of the host granite and contained mineralisation, partially infilled to 40 x 40 metres and locally to 40 x 20 metres.

Overall, mineralisation at Nkosuo bears strong similarities in style and scale to the western granite-hosted deposits at Edikan such as Fobinso and Abnabna, the company said.

Results available to date from the Nkosuo drilling confirm the previously declared potential for an Exploration Target of 10 to 15 Mt grading 0.9 to 1.1 g/t gold for 275 to 500koz contained gold, the company said.

To be precise, current indications are that “the bulk of this resource will be at depths shallower than 150 metres.”

Ongoing Drilling at Nkosuo to be expanded

The statement, however, mentioned that “the Exploration Target is conceptual in nature and takes no account of geological complexity, possible mining method or metallurgical recovery factors. The Exploration Target was estimated to enable an early assessment of the discovery’s potential to add to Edikan’s mine life.”

Jeff Quartermaine, Perseus’s Managing Director commented:

“As Perseus moves closer to achieving our goal of producing 500,000 ounces of gold per year, we have turned our sights to finding ways of sustaining this level of gold production to the end of the decade and beyond.

“Our exploration programme at Nkosuo has returned impressive results that demonstrate this prospect’s potential to add to Edikan’s mine life, with further successful drilling. We are particularly encouraged by similarities between the Nkosuo deposit and the Fobinso and Abnabna deposits which we’ve already successfully developed, mined and processed at Edikan.

“While we are working towards completing a maiden Mineral Resource estimate for Nkosuo in the first half of CY2022, we intend to continue exploring on the Agyakusu, Agyakusu-DML and Domenase exploration licence areas, all of which are under option to Perseus and all of which are located within trucking distance of our Edikan mill.”
Jeff Quartermaine, Perseus’s Managing Director

Perseus indicated that ongoing drilling at Nkosuo will focus on extending 80 x 80 metres coverage to the southern limits of the granite, completing the 40 x 40 metres infill coverage and commencing systematic infill to 40 x 20 metres. These are geared at providing support for a Mineral Resource estimate to be undertaken in the June 2022 quarter.

Metallurgical test work has commenced and Perseus will complete geotechnical drilling to evaluate Ore Reserve potential early in the September Quarter of 2022, the statement indicated.

In anticipation that this work will lead to a positive outcome, the Company is in the process of exercising its option over the Agyakusu permit and has completed some baseline studies to meet the requirements of the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) process.

Exploration more broadly at Edikan will investigate high-order prospects on the adjacent Agyakusu DML and Domenase permits where soil geochemical sampling has identified strong gold-in-soil anomalies associated with mineralised granites.