Ivanhoe Mines has initiated a 25,000-m, in-fill and exploration drilling program, using up to nine drill rigs, at the Kakula discovery on the Kamoa copper mining license area in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Kakula represents a major extension of the Kamoa copper deposit, which Ivanhoe Mines discovered in 2008.
The Kakula exploration area is approximately 10 km southwest of the Kamoa project’s planned initial mining area. The current drilling program is focused on a 12-km2 area along the projected trend of mineralization intersected in two high-grade holes completed in 2015. The program is targeting shallow resources at grades materially higher than the average grades at Kamoa, which potentially could be incorporated into the Kamoa phase-one feasibility study now under way.
The program also includes follow-up infill drilling aimed at defining indicated resources in areas where the continuity of materially higher grade is confirmed.
The Kamoa project is a joint venture between Ivanhoe Mines and Zijin Mining.
Doray Minerals has entered into a farm-in agreement with Rox Resources to explore Rox’s Mount Fisher gold project approximately 230 km north of the town of Leonora in the northeastern Goldfields of Western Australia. Doray can earn up to a 75% interest in the project by staged spending of up to A$10 million over a period of five years. The project comprises a number of exploration tenements covering approximately 480 km2 in the Mount Fisher greenstone belt, which has similarities to the multimillion ounce Agnew-Lawlers gold camp, also in Western Australia.
Significant intercepts from recent drilling by Rox include 15 m grading 4.15 g/mt gold from 30 m down the hole; 14 m grading 3.04 g/mt from 22 m down the hole, including 2 m grading 16.65 g/mt; and 8 m grading 3.22 g/mt from 105 m down the hole.
Doray views the Mount Fisher project as having excellent potential for large-scale gold mineralization and will focus on previously untested targets within the greenstone belt.
The historic Mount Fisher gold mine is excluded from the Doray-Rox agreement, as are tenements that host nickel mineralization discovered by Rox.
Mirasol Resources reported that its joint-venture partner, Cerro Vanguardia S.A., has initiated drilling on Mirasol’s 100% owned Claudia gold-silver project in Santa Cruz province, Argentina. Cerro Vanguardia is 92.5% owned by AngloGold Ashanti and is operator of the Cerro Vanguardia gold-silver mine, which abuts the 127,680-ha Claudia project.
The Claudia project hosts a series of large-scale prospects within reasonable trucking distance of the Cerro Vanguardia mill. The joint venture is targeting discovery of gold-silver resources that could be developed as satellite pits to the Cerro Vanguardia operation.
The first phase of drilling is testing a portion of the Curahue prospect, a 15-km-long epithermal vein corridor where Mirasol mapping, geophysics, and trenching have outlined six large, undrilled vein trends that are mostly concealed beneath thin, unconsolidated post-mineral cover. An initial 3,500-m, 22-hole, reverse-circulation drill program is testing three of these vein trends. Results from this program will be used to prioritize the higher-grade segments of the trends for follow-up diamond core and additional reverse-circulation drilling.
Future systematic exploration drilling of the remaining Curahue vein trends and other prospects at Claudia will be based on the results of this phase of exploration.
