Perseus Mining, a West Africa focused gold miner, is on track to realize the set output target of 500,000 ounces of gold per year, as its recently completed resource drilling programme at Nkosuo prospect revealed impressive results, indicative of the potential to materially add to the Edikan mine life, extending it to year-end 2027.
The just completed resource drilling programme at the Nkosuo prospect, located 7 km from its Edikan Gold Mine in Ghana, further showed that the bulk of the mineral resource will be at depths shallower than 150 metres.
As a result, this signals the need for more drilling programmes to increase Edikan’s mineral resource estimate and life of mine respectively. Already, preparation of a maiden Mineral Resource Estimate for the mineral deposit is underway and is due for completion by the end of the June 2022 Quarter.
Prior results from the Nkosuo drilling confirmed Perseus’s previously declared potential for an exploration target of 10 million tonnes (Mt) to 15 million tonnes (Mt) grading 0.9 to 1.1 g/t gold for 275 to 500koz contained gold. Current indications are that the bulk of this resource will be at depths shallower than 150 metres.
Jeff Quartermaine, Managing Director and CEO of Perseus Mining said: “As Perseus works towards consolidating our position as a reliable 500,000oz per year gold producer, our near-mine exploration drilling programmes are consistently delivering results that are aligned with this aim.
“The drilling programme at Nkosuo has returned impressive results that demonstrate that the deposit has the potential to materially add to Edikan’s mine life. We are particularly encouraged by similarities between the Nkosuo deposit and the Fobinso and Abnabna deposits that we’ve already successfully developed, mined and processed at Edikan.”
Jeff Quartermaine, CEO
The company’s exploration target is “conceptual in nature and does not follow any 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, according to the company’s press release.
Technical Analysis of the Mineral Deposit
Again, the potential resource quantity and grade of the exploration target is conceptual in nature and therefore is an approximation, Perseus said. “There has been insufficient exploration to estimate a Mineral Resource and it is uncertain if further exploration will result in estimation of a Mineral Resource”. The exploration target has been prepared and reported in accordance with the 2012 edition of the JORC Code and NI 43-101, Perseus said.
Technical analysis of the mineral deposit showed that the “strongest mineralisation is contained in the offset northern part of the intrusion and the northern central section of the southern part of the intrusion, gradually waning to the southwest”. Also, the granite body slumped at around 70 degrees to the west in the northern part of the intrusion, steepening to near vertical towards the south. Mineralisation within the granite consists of variably intense quartz stockwork veining with associated quartz-carbonate-sericite alteration.
Furthermore, the veining and alteration are accompanied by 1%-2% disseminated and selvage pyrite and arsenopyrite, with better gold grades generally associated with higher concentrations of arsenopyrite. The granite remains open to the south, with indications from surface workings that mineralisation may strengthen within the southern apex of the intrusion, analogous to the situation in the northern apex.
“While we are working towards completing a maiden Mineral Resource estimate for Nkosuo in the current quarter, we note that Nkosuo is just the first of several interesting targets located on the Agyakusu Exploration Licence.
Jeff Quartermaine
Perseus intends to continue exploring on each of the Agyakusu, Agyakusu-DML and Domenase exploration licence areas, all of which are under option to Perseus and are located within comfortable trucking distance of our Edikan mill, Quartermaine said.
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